“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light“. [1 Peter 2:9]
[L] The pre-Vatican II Church as a pyramidal structure. [R] The revolutionary vision of Vatican II on the Church.
On 4 February 2013, at the request of Fr Tony Neelankavil, Dean of Studies at the Marymatha [Mother Mary] Major Seminary in Trichu, Kerela, India, we joined two others, Professor Joris Geldhof from Leuven, Belgium, and Professor Paul Pullikan from the seminary, in presenting papers to faculties, students and invited guests. The Faculty of Theology at the seminary is associated with the Catholic University at Leuven, Belgium and there are lay people doing serious theology degree courses there. Apart from anything else, visits to places like this always make us feel ashamed that back home, our seminary steadfastly imposes a complete bar to lay persons and religious sisters from taking theology classes.
On this topic assigned to us, we did a four-point reflection.
We began with an opening thought on the 3 terms: Church, laity, and Vatican II. What is “Church”? Who are the “Laity”? These are matters for studies in Ecclesiology. Did the Second Vatican Council [1962-65] say something revolutionary about the role of the laity? To appreciate what revolutionary thinking, if any, came out from Vatican II, we must first turn to see the reality before the Council.
1. What was it like before Vatican II?
In this ASIPA pictorial presentation of the vision before the Second Vatican Council, the Church was seen as a pyramidal structure, with the clergy occupying the apex of the pyramid and the laity filling up the huge space at the bottom.
The dividing line between the top and the bottom cannot be clearer. It is like a demarcation between the holy and the profane, the religious and the secular, the power of the cloth hovering over the laity and bending them low. Put simply, the clergy were holy, the laity were not.
Divine grace, gifts and blessings came directly from “beyond the clouds” to the clergy, even flooding them with great, overflowing abundance of holy divine stuff. The laity, on the other hand, must humbly receive God’s grace and blessings through the intermediary of the clergy. This vision of church allows for divine grace and blessings to percolate through the clergy to the laity only in dribs and drabs! The masses of poor, ignorant laity would be quite lost without the clergy, their shepherds, and their search for salvation quite untenable without the latter. The message is outlandish, but precise: without the priests, there would be no church. However, all would be well for the laity if they were docile and obedient towards their “sacred” pastors. The laity, to be sure, were secular, and nothing like “sacred”. In sum, the role of the laity in the pre-Vatican II Church was to “pray, pay, and obey”.
But what is “Church”?
Recall that we can speak of the Christian Church, because there is first the Christ. For the same reason, we can speak of the Eucharist, and have this feast of the Lord’s Supper to celebrate, because Someone died for us on the cross. In a very real sense, we cannot do Ecclesiology without Christology. Surely, if we want to reflect on the Church, we had better give due respect to the centrality of Christ before we insist on the importance and indispensability of the priests.
To forget any of that is to have no “theological legs” to stand on in our theologising. So next, we turn to the Council to see how it theologized.
2. What did Vatican II teach about the role of the laity?
Vatican II procession 
The opening of Vatican II.
This is a real time photograph of the hour-long procession of bishops and cardinals into St Peter’s Basilica for the opening session of the Second Vatican Council on 11 October, 1962.
Could anything dramatic or revolutionary come from a gathering of seemingly traditional, conservative, elderly bishops that could change the Church in any way? Did the Council fathers remember Christ in their theologising? What dramatic rethinking and reshaping of the role of the laity in the life and mission of the Church could possibly emerge from a gathering such as this?
Yes, inspired by the Holy Spirit, dramatic and revolutionary theologizing did emerge from the Council. We highlight three elements Vatican II said in its rethinking of the role of the laity.
i. Of being called to holiness
The universal call to holiness is rooted in baptism.
- We are Church on account of baptism which converts us into the People of God.
- Baptism is the call to live holy lives.
- Our baptismal calling is a universal Christian vocation to the sacred that precedes all other vocations.
- Both Marriage and Orders are rooted in Baptism.
- So we lament the excessive attention on Orders, but not enough attention on Baptism.
- Whenever theology lacks breadth and depth on Baptism, authenticity of our Christian living suffers.
- Ch.2 of Lumen Gentium on the People of God, important as it is in its insertion before the hierarchy, is not the most important in the document.
The most important point in Lumen Gentium is its Christological focus.
- It kicks off with a clear profession of Christ as “the light of humanity.” (The Council Fathers did remember Christ!)
- It then proceeds without hesitation to speak of “The Mystery of the Church”. (This is great, for the document from the outset steered clear of launching off with the church as institution and the indispensability of the hierarchy.)
- It proclaims: “the Church, in Christ, is in the nature of a sacrament – a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men.”
To ignore this “mystery” dimension of the Church is to reduce it to its mere sociological dimension, ignoring the deeper implications of its baptismal root and what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.
ii. Of being gifted with the Spirit
From common rootedness in baptism, the Church is one, even though marked from the beginning by great diversity on account of a variety of God’s gifts and a diversity of recipients [1 Cor 12].
Gifts come from the Holy Spirit, not from some intermediary human agency. When St Paul wrote about the diversity of gifts in the Body of Christ that came from the same Spirit, and the diversity of ministries from the same Lord, he stressed the equal dignity of all and the equality between all in the faith community. Any theology from any quarters that purports to draw a hierarchy of importance of personalities in the Church is not from the Spirit but from human hubris.
Then, the fact of the universal gifts of the Holy Spirit demands on all in the Body of Christ to expend energy for Church-growth.
- Clearly, it is baptism, not priestly ordination, that forms the basis for all mission and ministry.
- The mission of every baptized person is to be a sacrament of God’s love in a world of strife, violence and inequity.
- Mission, therefore, is the work of an adult church.
- In an adult church, neither is “worldly mission” exclusive to lay people, nor is “church business” exclusive to the clergy.
- There is an overlap. What is required is the combined gifts and collaboration of all in the Church – the laity, the clergy, and the religious.
iii. Of being engaged in the life and mission of the Church
In view of baptism, the source of our holiness is Christ, who sanctifies us – all of us.
The laity are an essential component of the “People of God”, graced and sanctified by Christ, and share in Christ’s mission as priest, prophet, and king.
The Council’s vision on the role of the laity may therefore be seen in three steps:
- The laity is not passive, as the apostolate belongs to them as much as to the ordained;
- In view of their stations in life, the lay persons are to engage in Kingdom-advancement in temporal affairs;
- In view of their membership in the Body of Christ and the People of God, they need also to participate actively in the inner affairs of the Church.[1]
In sum, then, two points deserve to be stressed:
- Avoid saying the laity’s role is “principally” or “primarily” secular. Before anyone has any “vocation”, each has a Christian vocation – a vocation to the sacred.
- The laity’s role, according to the Council, has two foci:
- involvement in the world and its transformation; and
- involvement in the Church and its growth.
It remains to be said, and ought to be repeatedly said, that the duty is on the bishops and the priests who are in charge of church-structures and finances to accord a meaningful collaborative role to the laity.[2]
In this picture, the Church is neither an institution nor a hierarchical pyramid. It is a living mystery, the Body of Christ, the People of God. This pictorial re-presentation of the Vatican II Church highlights many positive elements of a revolutionary vision where:
- the faithful are a pilgrim people
- journeying, together, to the same goal
- led by Christ, the Way
- nourished by Word and Sacraments
- bringing gospel values to all sectors of society in their common mission ad intra and ad extra.
From the hillside to the prairies,
- the People of God build schools and factories, churches and homes, offices and playgrounds;
- where others burn and destroy, they would build and rebuild;
- where there is strife and violence, they seek to make peace and reconcile.
3. What do we see today?
What is your experience of the ecclesial reality in this golden jubilee year of the opening of the Second Vatican Council?
i. Many positive signs
- A multitude of ministries has flourished in the church: at Mass, children’s ministries, catechetical and faith formation, youth ministry, various lay organizations.
- There is also a multitude of recognisable, church-related, Christian organisations serving the world in myriad fields.
- Furthermore, the laity are also active in the world in activities that contribute to the welfare of society but may not be immediately recognisable as “holy” church-related work.
- In some countries in the West, there are more qualified theologians amongst the laity than the clergy. There are many “lay” theologians too in the third world.
- It is evident that the laity are no longer “passive”, but active participants in kingly, priestly and prophetic ministries in Church and world.
ii. Serious Negative Experiences
The understanding of Baptism in its depth and breadth suffers from a gross imbalance compared to Orders.
The laity are also kept out of meaningful participation in decision-making in governance [their role in canon law being consultative only] and in matters of faith [cp. sensus fidelium?]
There is serious ambiguity in official documents: repeated mention of “sacred pastors”, but where are the “sacred laity”?
“Spiritual gangsterism”, to borrow an expression from Pastor Ignotus, columnist of the London-based Tablet magazine, is rife amongst the clergy in their dealings with the rest of the people of God who do not have the power and privileges that come with ordination in clergy-promulgated church-law.
Often, it is sad to witness a reversal to pre-Vatican II mentality in the clerical mind-set:
- The colossal clerical sex scandal is an obstinately lingering case in point;
- There is a serious, obstinate barricade against the basic principles of “transparency” and “accountability”;
- There is the damning clericalist pronouncement: “We are the ones to decide!”
Often, actions do not match words:-
- “Equal dignity?” But women faithful suffer from ministry-exclusion and class-reduction;
- Even religious sisters are not allowed to study theology at our local seminary.
More often than we can possibly tolerate, there is a religious “infantilization” of educated adults.
The laity are kept out of holy spaces through control of the liturgy and ministries. Discrimination against women has gone to the extreme in places. In our local church, women (other than religious sisters) are barred from distributing communion during Mass – the symbol of prejudice against women from the “official” church cannot get any more blatant than that!
4. What suggestions for change can we offer?
Pope Benedict in recent years has repeatedly emphasized that the laity are not called to participate in the mission and ministry of the priests and to merely collaborate with the latter. The laity have been equally called to the apostolate, to the mission and life of the Church. They are co-workers and co-participants with the priests, who are called to collaborate with each other in the life and mission of the Church. Those are, and remain, beautiful words very much in line with the teaching of Vatican II.
Our problem is, there is a serious gap, a disproportion, between “show” and “tell”. The laity are forever saying to the official institutional side of the Church [not the full Church of People of God, but the official, clerical, managerial side only], please don’t “tell” us, “show” us!
Do we need a change of structures for the Church to be truly Church? Do we need a serious change of mentality?
If you were asked to name three goals you hope to see in a renewed church, what would they be?
- A greatly reduced clergy-laity divide?
- An empowered laity [male and female]?
- An active promotion of co-responsibility of clergy and laity for the life and mission of the Church?
And, if you were asked to name three things we need to see in a healthy, functioning Body of Christ and People of God, what would you say?
- A replacement of a legal model of the Church by a communion model?
- Genuine dialogue and fellowship?
- A real respect for the dignity of women?
In a conversation we had with Mgsr. S. Jayanathan, the Vicar General of Bangalore, India at a recent international conference on “Revisiting Vatican II: Fifty Years of Renewal”, he made a triple-proposal in response to our question concerning suggestions for change in the Church in relation to the role of the laity:
- Clear pastoral vision (resulting from joint deliberation and consultation);
- Collective decision-making;
- Collaborative implementation.
Do you see positive signs of a pilgrim People at work in this triple-C schema?
Notes:
* This post is transcribed from the presentation slides. For the printed article, please search in the category “Slightly More Theological” of this same webpage.
[1] See Vatican II documents, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium),31; Decree on the Apostolate of the Lay People (Apostolicam Autuositatem),2.
[2] See Vatican II document, Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops in the Church (Christus Dominus), 16.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, March 2013. All rights reserved.
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