UP FRONT
The Laity and the Wisdom People
Carroll Juliano & Loughlan Sofield

In this third article based on discussions with the senior archbishops of the church in the United States, the authors take up the key roles of lay leaders and parishioners. Part 1 and Part 2 were published earlier this year.

The wisdom of the elders may be one of the most significantly undervalued and underused gifts in the church. It is rarely tapped at any significant level of the church from the parish to the church universal.

This reality motivated us to undertake a project that might unearth the wisdom of some of the oldest prelates in the United States, a group we named the wisdom people. A further incentive for the project came from a talk given by Pope John Paul II to the bishops of New Jersey and Pennsylvania during their ad limina visit on September 11, 2004. In a bold and challenging talk, the pope spoke of his concern for the church in the United States. He mentioned his fear that the hierarchy was losing its credibility. He also spoke of certain issues that required action. The pope advised the bishops to change their structures and governance in order to foster the gospel more effectively; to discover ways of involving the laity at every level of the church; to foster greater collaboration; and to recapture the vision of the Second Vatican Council.

The Journey

Those prophetic comments from the Holy Father prompted the authors to begin a journey in search of appropriate responses to the pope’s concerns. We decided to interview the oldest retired archbishops in the United States, a council of elders, those installed as archbishops prior to 1971. We asked just two questions. “After reading what Pope John Paul said to the bishops of New Jersey and Pennsylvania what do you see as the most pressing needs in the church in the United States at this time?” and “What would you recommend?” Six of the oldest archbishops agreed to be interviewed. After we compiled their responses, a meeting was convened at the Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. Primarily due to health issues only two of the six interviewees were able to attend the meeting. However, those two engaged in a spirited dialogue and provided much wisdom and many insights as they responded to the summary report of the individual interviews. Their wisdom helped to provide a blueprint for an agenda for the laity of the American church.

This article will focus on a key element of that blueprint, the role and involvement of the laity in the church. This issue was identified as a major concern by each of the men we interviewed and became a major focus of the discussion at Notre Dame. Among the recommendations of this council of elders were the following:

• The starting point for all discussion and dialogue must be the Second Vatican Council’s emphasis on the church as the people of God;
  
  
• Involve the laity and utilize their gifts fully and in meaningful ways in every aspect of church life;
  
  
• Church leaders must become more adept at listening to and learning from the laity; and
  
  
• Work at the development of “a collegial spirit” and collegial structures.

The People of God

Not surprisingly, the starting point for most of those we interviewed was the concept of the people of God, a model both simple and profound. There is a belief among some of these archbishops that this rich theological concept, articulated at the Second Vatican Council, has still not been fully understood and developed. Thus, it falls to the incumbent church leaders to commit themselves to develop this rich idea more fully. As one of the interviewees said, “The church is the people of God. The church is going to accomplish its mission through the work of the people of God. It’s that simple.”

The archbishops were careful to explain that, although they were focusing on the laity, “The emergence of lay leadership does not detract from, nor deny, the need for priests.” A commonly heard theme was that the “church will only accomplish its mission to the extent that it has all the people of God involved.”

Involving the Laity in Meaningful Ways

Flowing from the theology of the people of God, each archbishop stressed that the primary focus for accomplishing the changes recommended by the pope was to discover ways to involve the laity in “meaningful ways” at every level of church life, both in ministry and in decision-making.

While at Notre Dame one of the archbishops, after reflecting on the summary, stated, “It seems that we are all pretty much concerned about the same things,” most notably the concern for and desire to utilize the gifts of the laity more effectively. In addition, there was also a clearly articulated desire to encourage the development of structures needed to foster this greater involvement of the laity at every level in the mission of the church.

More than mere involvement of the laity is called for. As a mission-focused church we need to create ways to engage more effectively the gifts of the laity in implementing the mission of the church. Several of the archbishops acknowledged the obvious, that it is impossible for any church leader to accomplish that mission without the full utilization of the God-given gifts of the laity. As Pope John Paul II had previously claimed, “In order to meet the contemporary demands of evangelization, the collaboration of the laity is becoming more and more indispensable.”

One archbishop hypothesized that the reason we do not have more laity involved in “meaningful ways in the church” is because we have emphasized Christ’s command to “go and teach all nations,” while neglecting the second part of that directive to “go and make disciples.” He conjectured that the church’s emphasis on the element of discipleship might make a significant difference in our emphasis as church. He quoted Karl Rahner, whom he described as “theologically smart but who also had a good sense of reality.” Rahner said that in the future all Christians will be contemplatives or there will be no Christians. The archbishop indicated that “mature discipleship” is a contemplative discipleship. He questions whether there can be “an authentic” apostolic life unless it is a contemplative life.

Listen and Learn from the Laity

The need to listen and learn from the laity emerged as a constant motif throughout the interviews, with each archbishop sharing personal stories of his attempts in this area.

One archbishop told how he involved a group of business people in helping him make a major financial decision for the diocese. The business people’s recommendation was contrary to what the archbishop believed was the best course of action. However, he said that since he asked for their assistance and their knowledge, he made the decision that they suggested. He declared that it would have been disrespectful to ask their advice and not follow it.

The challenge as expressed by one archbishop was “to find leaders in various fields who are knowledgeable and dedicated” and involve them in a way that they feel valued and respected for what they bring to the mission.
Listening is not enough. The archbishops mentioned that even involving people in providing their wisdom and insights is inadequate unless we also involve the laity in decision-making. Failure to involve them in this way is a blueprint for disaster. The church must move beyond a “merely consultative role for the laity.” It is important to give them “canonically supported responsibilities.”

A few of the archbishops reflected on how different the church might be today if there had been meaningful involvement of the laity in the recent past. “If we had a more meaningful, significant involvement by lay people in the church” perhaps the abuse and fiscal mismanagement crises would not have occurred” one of the archbishops hypothesized. In reflecting on the sexual abuse issue, an archbishop commented that the laity and parents, in particular, would never have allowed this crisis to occur if they had been a part of the process when the issue first came to light. He acknowledged that often in the past the ultimate concern of the hierarchy was for the priest and the reputation of the church. Lay involvement would have challenged those assumptions.

The church of today and the church of the future must place a greater emphasis on listening and learning from the laity. One archbishop, a former philosophy teacher, stated that simply passing on information to people, including philosophy, was not the way to proceed. Rather, he thought that the answer consists in building personal relationships with the laity, “working together with them in relatively small communities” where we can interact, relate, challenge, and listen. He summarized what he was saying by sharing something he had learned generations ago, “If you listen you learn, and if you don’t listen you don’t learn.”

Part of the listening process is to ask questions, especially to ask people what they think and what they need. One of the side effects of listening and asking questions, an archbishop told us, is that in the process of doing that you also learn what gifts people have and you can invite them to use those gifts for the sake of the community.

A Collegial Spirit

“There is a need to develop collegial structures to involve the entire church, but especially the laity, in more meaningful ways.” However, merely developing structures is inadequate. The church must go further and develop “a collegial spirit.” One archbishop went so far as to say that if we, as church, really focused our attention on developing this spirit, the structures would take care of themselves. He summed up his belief by indicating that this spirit must begin with a commitment to dialogue. He believes that when real dialogue occurs trust will inevitably follow and relationships will emerge. It is the development of these relationships that will result in a true collegial spirit.

One key to developing this spirit is “to create an atmosphere and climate” where people will not only accept responsibility, but also where they will not be afraid to make mistakes. It is this fear of failure that often thwarts a more mission-oriented approach.

One of the things recommended by Pope John Paul in his ad limina presentation was not only to change the structures and the governance, but also to make them more life-giving.

There were a number of suggestions offered for making the church structures more life-giving:

• “The structures still depend too much on the bishop.”
  
  
• “Develop structures that allow for “broader participation, personal involvement and deep ownership.”
  
  
• Life-giving structures will be characterized by a climate of openness and frankness that could restore the lack of credibility that the pope identified.
  
  
• While attempting to develop structures that will foster the post–Vatican II church, the attitudes that give birth to these structures are too often more reflective of a Vatican I mentality.

Whatever structures are developed must reflect true collegiality. The archbishops constantly combined the issues of lay participation and effective structures with the issue of collegiality.

Conclusion

The first archbishop with whom we shared our ideas for the project of interviewing the “council of elders” replied, “They are not interested in hearing from us.” When asked whom he meant by “they” he informed us that he was thinking of the other members of the hierarchy. We informed him that we weren’t undertaking this project primarily for the hierarchy, but for the entire people of God.
Over and over we heard how each of these men could clearly see the workings of the Holy Spirit in all that is happening in the church, the successes and the apparent failures.

Conducting the interviews was a source of hope and inspiration for us. If you are interested in reading the transcripts of the interviews and the meeting, as well as the summary of this project, we direct you to the following Web site at the University of Notre Dame: http://www.nd.edu/~icl/consults.shtml

Sister Carroll Juliano, SHCJ, and Brother Loughlan Sofield, ST, are co-authors of a number of award-winning books, including Collaboration: Uniting Our Gifts in Ministry (Ave Maria Press, 2000).