Sunday, October 23, 2005
MINISTRY, MINISTRY EVERYWHERE...BUT NOT A PRIEST IN SIGHT
I've got stuff to do today and won't have time to blog, so while you're here, take a look at The Weight of Glory Blog sent in by a reader, where you can read:
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is a case study in the confusion of roles that is becoming more and more a part of the Church in the United States. In many cases, there seems to be an earnest effort to blur the distinctions between the ordained ministry / priesthood and the lay apostolate.
I remember the ecclesial PC-speech I encountered a decade ago in the seminary, in an environment in which lay people and seminarians studied side by side. I enjoyed having lay people in class with me. What I did not enjoy was the political environment that came along with it, fostered primarily by administrators and faculty, I would have to say. The lay students had a "commuter lounge" in the seminary administration building, and documents made the distinction not between lay students and seminarians, but between "commuter" and "resident" students. Please.
Faculty members in American seminaries may claim that this is a concern that belongs only to people with a hyper-clerical view of leadership in the Church. Some snicker at the mention of Vatican documents such as this one. But how do they explain the way that lay "pastoral directors" in Los Angeles understand themselves and their roles? If this isn't confusion, I don't know what is.
Continue reading...
