Mary Betz imagines a Church without clericalism where ordained and lay dialogue about a shared vision of participating in the mission of God.

Pope Francis has called clericalism “a perversion” and “the root of many evils in the Church”. It has been identified as the root of the horrific sexual abuse uncovered last year by the Pennsylvania grand jury in the USA. It is experienced daily in multiple guises by Catholics around the world who are prevented from exercising their rightful roles in the life of the Church.

What Is Clericalism?

A succinct definition of clericalism comes from the late Richard Neuhaus before he became a Catholic: “It is the problem of a caste that arrogates to itself undue authority that makes unwanted claims to wisdom, even to having a monopoly on understanding the mind of God. The consequence is the great weakening of the Church by denigrating or excluding the many gifts of the Spirit present in the people who are the Church. The problem of clericalism arises when “the Church” acts in indifference, or even contempt, toward the people who are the Church.”

Clericalism creates a culture of entitlement, superiority and “Father knows best” — aided and abetted by the longstanding belief that ordination causes an “ontological” change which makes a priest different in essence from ordinary mortals.

How Is It Experienced?

Clericalism can be found at every level of Church life. We encounter it, for instance, when:

• parish councils and committees disband when a priest prefers to make decisions himself;

• homilies proclaim the evils of divorce without compassion or understanding; or consist of anecdotes totally extraneous to lectionary readings, or of spiritual prattle without relevance to real life; or when they teach that women in abusive marriages should “carry their crosses";

• priests stop the Mass to glare at parents with a crying child until they leave, or to insult the ministry of lay people;

• parish staff (usually women) are employed without contract, paid below a living wage, expected to work more than paid hours or expected to perform tasks unrelated to parish matters;

• priests reverse egalitarian structures and inclusive liturgies encouraged by previous priests;

• a priest leads a teenaged employee into a sexual relationship; or attempts to fondle a woman who comes seeking an annulment.

And clericalism is alive in the upper hierarchy, too — when a bishop chooses to do nothing when told of injustices; or cover up bad decisions; or makes decisions affecting laity or priests without seeking input from either; or when synods of bishops and pope (or the curia and its congregations) issue statements informed by only token input or representation from laity.

What’s Wrong with It?

Clericalism is contrary to subsidiarity — the principle of Catholic social teaching which calls for decisions to be made at the lowest or least centralised competent authority. When all decisions are made by Church hierarchy, the message to us “below” is that we are not competent to make such decisions, and that our rich and diverse natural and baptismal gifts are unwelcome. When the hierarchy appropriates decision-making to itself, it assumes it has the right, the knowledge, the wisdom and the authority of God to do so. We, the non-ordained, have often acquiesced.

The 99.9 per cent of us in the pews are ourselves imbued with lay manifestations of clericalism. We often “pray, pay and obey”, with an understanding of Church that sees us being deferential to Father, agreeing with him, following his instruction and rarely asking questions. And while we have rightly taken Vatican II as an invitation to help our dwindling numbers of ordained with ministry inside the Church, we have not been prepared for — and have largely failed to carry out — our most important commission: to become a People of God working radical change in our world.

Not all Catholics continue to spend time and energy within the Church. Catholic numbers in New Zealand (as throughout the West) are declining, except in the Auckland Diocese, where more than 50 per cent of Catholics are recent immigrants. The phenomenon of “white Kiwi flight” has been obscured — and clericalism (including the hierarchy’s attitude toward women) is at fault. Those at the top have tried to blame secularism, sports and consumerism for the loss of parishioners — a convenience which avoids clear, honest and humble examination of the Church’s own structures, practices, theologies and behaviours.

Church without Clericalism

What did Jesus show us? He gathered unlikely people, but taught and related to a God of love. He nurtured them with compassionate interpretations of scriptures relevant to their lives. He modelled healing and the challenging of unjust structures, then sent his disciples out to care for people and change their world. Jesus pleaded with his followers not to “lord it over one another” — an appeal that has long gone unheard.

Perhaps our basic problem is that we have failed to really know God. To rid ourselves of clericalism, we need to know the God of love Jesus knew — not a god who exercises power over others but One who cares, serves, liberates and empowers. If our Church worships an unapproachable authoritarian god of power and might, is it no wonder that we make or accept Church leaders in the same image.

A Church without clericalism would involve women and men as equals. It would be more horizontal than vertical in its structures. It would invite questions and consider possibilities instead of rigid answers. It would lead Christians to friendship with and knowledge of God not only through sacraments but through many forms of prayer and action. And it would involve the People of God collaboratively in Jesus’s mission within the Church as well as “on the streets”.

How Are We to Change?

The Church is not the only institution to abuse its power. Anyone who has worked in corporations, government and even NGOs will have found similar behaviours. We can make structural changes in the Church in the hope of changing clerical culture, but human attitudes — both ordained and lay — have to change as well.

Our whole Church needs to dialogue about God, ministry and mission:

• Who is the God of Jesus, and what is God’s mission we talk about?

• Is it healthy for those who lead us in mission in the world to see themselves as ontologically “set apart” by ordination?

• Who needs to be involved in choosing those who minister? What curriculum do leaders need for ministry? To whom do ministers need to be accountable?

• Could seminarians spend time learning and practising collaborative (gift-based) ministry with lay people to appreciate the richness of all our gifts?

• What qualities do we need in our ministers?

• How can we include ministers of all genders and marital states?

We know we need ministers who have compassion, wisdom, spiritual maturity, respect, humility and a heart for the poor and Earth. As lay people we can continue to grow in our understanding of God, one another and the needs of our world working appreciatively with wise and compassionate clergy as we do so. We can initiate dialogue with our leaders, but also be willing to embrace the mission of God — and run with it ourselves. We have one life on this Earth and it calls us urgently to metanoia and the reign of God to which Jesus longs for us to belong.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 234 February 2019: 4-5