What Will the Catholic Church Look Like in 100 Years? (Part Three)

[See the Part One and Part Two blogs for background. There will be an upcoming fourth installment to finish the series by looking at one final “back to the future” moment from the Second Vatican Council.]

The focus on baptism at the Second Vatican Council helps to create a deeper understanding of the shared ecclesial unity the Church already has, thereby moving the Church beyond an entrenched centuries-old Counter-Reformation identity.  However, it also allows the Council to reach back even further, into a core aspect of the Church’s first millennium reality.  The third “back to the future” moment of Vatican II, then, is the recovery of the primacy of baptismal identity not just for renewed ecumenical relations, but for the possibility of deeper spiritual renewal and even structural change within the Catholic Church.  The Church is not properly imaged as a pyramid where everything flows top down, with the baptized laity at the bottom, who are asked to “pray for, pay for, and obey” whatever decisions the clergy direct them toward.  All the baptized have essential charisms for the life of the Church, including helping the Church understand and live out its doctrinal faith.  All have the ability to fully witness to the holiness God intends for God’s people.  All are key participants in the mission of the Church.  The key identity question can become, once again, “Are you a Christian?” more than “Are you a priest?” and that holds for everyone in the Church, including the ordained.

The actual history and details of how a baptism-centered understanding of the Church’s identity became usurped by an excessively clericalist understanding is quite long and complex and any summary will miss many nuances.  But as a (too?) simple summary, once baptism of infants becomes the given practice and territories are either part of Christendom or not, then the issue of being a baptized Christian is no longer the real identifier. The feudal structure of society adds energy to this understanding of Church, with its emphasis on which estate one was born into—nobility, clergy, peasantry—so that, over time, the Christian identity is no longer tied to being baptized and in some way set apart from the world. Rather, the key identity question becomes “Where within society are you located?”  Being baptized does not define your role or mission. Being ordained does.

As I pointed out in the previous blog, the document on the Church (Lumen Gentium), deliberately re-arranges the order of topics and treats of the “People of God” before talking about the service that hierarchy plays within the Church.  This means that all baptized members of the Church have an integral share in every aspect of the Church’s mission, including the shaping of our doctrinal faith, something that had come to be identified nearly exclusively with the official teaching office (Magisterium) of the Church.  For example, in the theological manuals prior to the Second Vatican Council, it had become common to distinguish the “the listening Church” from the “the teaching Church,” identifying the former with the laity and the latter with the hierarchy.  But as the International Theological Commission pointed out in its 2014 document on the ‘Sensus Fidei’ in the Life of the Church:

“The importance of the sensus fidei in the life of the Church was strongly emphasized by the Second Vatican Council. Banishing the caricature of an active hierarchy and a passive laity, and in particular the notion of a strict separation between the teaching Church (Ecclesia docens) and the learning Church (Ecclesia discens), the council taught that all the baptized participate in their own proper way in the three offices of Christ as prophet, priest and king. In particular, it taught that Christ fulfills his prophetic office not only by means of the hierarchy but also via the laity (#4).”

When one understands that all the baptized, if open and docile to God’s Spirit, contribute to that “sense of faith,” then the sensus fidelium (the united consensus of what is authentically the faith) requires the involvement of all the faithful, not just the ordained.

One of the key theologians at Vatican II was Yves Congar, a French Dominican who had written extensively on ecclesiology and Church Tradition in light of a deeper understanding of the thinking of Patristic era theologians.  That writing brought him to the attention of the Holy Office, and Congar was put under restrictions in the years leading up to the Council.  However, Pope (now St.) John XXIII had read his book True and False Reform in the Church.  Pope John saw in it a theological exposition that was valuable, and so named him a theological consultant to those preparing for the Council, thus leading to Congar becoming, by the measure of many historians of the Council, the most influential of the theological consultants as the Council progressed.  After the Council, a central focus of Congar’s work was on “reception” of conciliar and magisterial teaching, past and present.  Congar recognized that the whole Church, because of that baptismal “sense of faith,” plays a role in how the core teachings of faith and morals are incorporated into the ongoing life and structures of the Church.  It is not as simple as the popular phrase Roma locuta est, causa finite est (“Rome has spoken, the case is closed”) would have it.  Congar recognized fully the teaching authority of the papal, ecumenical council, and episcopal magisterium, but he also saw that such teaching could get misunderstood, misinterpreted, thwarted or nuanced over the course of time, and so a verbal repetition of a teaching was not sufficient to fully understand the full meaning of that teaching in the life of the Church.  One needs to look at the process of how such teaching gets received into the actual life of the Church, which involves the laity as well as the clergy, if one desired to distinguish true and false reform, authentic and inauthentic reform, what is truly Tradition (capital “T” and thus essential to the Catholic and apostolic faith) versus what is tradition (lowercase “t” and so might even have a long historical pedigree but is not essential to the faith).  All this flows from Vatican II’s recovery of the first millennium reality of a Church that recognizes the centrality of its baptismal identity.

[Two side notes: Lest someone think that Congar is saying something that is not theologically acceptable, please note that Pope (now St.) John Paul II named Congar a Cardinal, even though he was not a bishop, due to his work at the Council and his ongoing theological work after the Council.  Secondly, what these four blogs are about is precisely this idea of reception.  How will the insights and teaching of the Second Vatican Council be received by the Church universal over the next hundred plus years?  It is still a very open issue.  As Pope Francis reminded the Church: even though the Second Vatican Council is already over 60 years removed, we have only barely begun plumbing the depths of and integrating Vatican II into the life of the Church, most especially because we have not yet fully embraced the radicality of what it means to be a baptized Christian.]

The excessive clericalism within the Church’s self-understanding at the time of the Council was forcefully pointed out by Bishop DeSmedt of Belgium, as the Council Fathers took up the original schema De Ecclesia (“On the Church”).  His was one of several key interventions that would help the Council Fathers realize that the document presented to them was too dependent on a narrow, neo-scholastic approach that had taken hold over the centuries.  Bishop DeSmedt sharply criticized the language of the schema as suffering from “triumphalism, clericalism, and juridicalism.”  He pointed out in particular that with clericalism there came a false conception of the Church as a pyramid, where those at the top were given more dignity and a greater share of fundamental rights and responsibilities that really belonged to the entire People of God.  Shining a light on that clericalism helped the Council re-capture the centrality of baptismal identity for the Church’s self-understanding, and so brought into play that first millennium reality.

Along with the clericalization of the Church’s self-understanding over the centuries came a tendency to falsely see a hierarchy in spirituality and holiness, depending on one’s state in life.  In that view clergy and vowed religious, especially monks and nuns, were held in highest regard.  Marriage, while a sacrament, was thought by too many as unable to achieve the same degree of holiness of life, because of the need to be so involved in daily, “worldly” affairs.  Thus the importance of Chapter V in Lumen Gentium, “The Universal Call to Holiness in the Church.”  Taking nothing away from the unique, important and impressive witness of those who commit their lives to the evangelical counsels, the document reminds us that every Christian, no matter their state of life, single or married, vowed and not, ordained and lay, all have the same basic call, responsibility and ability—to model the gift of holiness that flows from baptism into whatever state of life one is called.  Although historians will point out that the impressive growth of monasticism from the late 4^th c. on in the Church is much more diverse and complex than commonly thought (see, for example, the recent work The Monastic World by Andrew Jotischky), there is a kernel of truth in the insight that the rather massive Christianization of the Roman Empire in the mid to late 4^th century led a significant number of women and men to seek out a more austere life. The development of monasticism provided a “third way” for a man or woman to witness to a Christian way of life, what has come to be called the embrace of the “evangelical counsels” of poverty, chastity and obedience.  Neither married nor ordained (including the vast majority of monastic men) but living “apart from the world,” those who took on a monastic way of life came to be seen by many, unsurprisingly, as being “closer to the gospel way of life” and therefore “holier” than the typical lay man or woman.

This development and then solidification of an “evangelical way of life,” identified as a special calling separate from simply living out one’s baptismal identity in the world, had a great influence on the Church’s understanding of spirituality, prayer and holiness.  This was true even though that way of life itself could become quite “worldly,” including having vast property holdings that needed managing, owning serfs to work the land, and not necessarily living very chaste lives.  When friar movements (such as Augustinians, Franciscans, and Dominicans) arose in the medieval period and received permission not to be tied to a specific place, monasticism gets primarily identified with stable communities of monks and nuns.  However,  the evangelical counsels remain integral to the spirituality and communal life within all the emerging religious orders then and throughout the second millennium.  For male religious communities many (and then eventually most) of the leading members are ordained, thus uniting evangelical counsels and hierarchy within those orders, so that the common self-understanding within the Church of the mid-20^th century is that spirituality and holiness have a certain hierarchy as mentioned above.  Who are the ones canonized? Nearly always men and women who have the backing of a religious community. Who are the ones who produce works of spiritual guidance? Nearly always men and women religious.  Who are the ones who model truly prayerful lives? Those who live in communities and have taken on the three evangelical counsels.  Therefore, the Second Vatican Council’s recognition of a universal call to holiness, placed before the chapter on vowed religious life, though couched in very traditional language and respect for those living the evangelical counsels in a vowed way is so important. It focuses the Church on the witness to the gospel (“evangelical”) way of life every baptized person is called to (Lumen Gentium, #41): “The classes and duties of life are many, but holiness is one—that sanctity which is cultivated by all who are moved by the Spirit of God, and who obey the voice of the Father and worship God the Father in spirit and in truth. These people follow the poor Christ, the humble and cross-bearing Christ in order to be worthy of being sharers in His glory. Every person must walk unhesitatingly according to his own personal gifts and duties in the path of living faith, which arouses hope and works through charity.”

There are many other ways to highlight this recovery of baptismal focus.  For example, it is not accidental that most church renovations post-Vatican II include a fairly prominent baptismal font or baptismal area.  No longer a small font set into a corner of the Church but one capable of immersing or pouring water over someone’s whole body, visibly present to all, and allowing those who enter the church space to go to the actual baptismal font rather than one of many small holy water dishes to bless themselves.  This liturgical development has gone hand in hand with the promotion of the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults as the framework to understand conversion and sacramental incorporation into the life of the Church, which is itself a recovery of a first millennium reality.  This recovery of a baptismal focus does not alter the need for ordained ministry, but it also does not place the initiative for Church mission, for evangelization, for witness to holiness, even for Church administration in the hands of the clergy alone or even primarily. Primarily, all the baptized are called to mission and evangelization and all have been given charisms to build up the Church for mission.

The re-reception of the first millennium’s basic dividing line for the Church as “living out one’s baptism or not” versus “ordained or not,” like the other “back to the future” moments, is not a nostalgic recovery of the past.  It is a pointer to the future as well.  Thus, the fourth key question for the next hundred or more years: To what extent will the Church fully integrate the basic baptismal equality and dignity of every member into its ongoing life and structure?  This question opens up a host of others as well.  Will the Church allow its administrative offices to be led by the most competent people, whether ordained or not?  Will men and women who are not ordained but who have gifts for preaching and sharing the gospel be integrated more fully into the Church’s life and worship?  Will married couples who have a strong, loving sexually intimate relationship become models of holiness that the Church raises up and even canonizes?  Will the Church open up even further the ordination of married men or ordain women as deacons, and if so, will the motivation be as a Spirit-led openness to the future or as a way to maintain a certain clerical control of Church structure and life?  Will the Church continue to encourage lay ecclesial movements to find their own paths of service and integration into the Church’s life or will most be directed toward the more “accepted” paradigm of religious communities and the evangelical counsels? Many other questions could be added to this list, but there are two areas in particular, I believe, that will tell the story of how far the Church eventually receives this recovery of baptismal identity.  The first is the sanctity of a well-formed conscience and the right (holiness?) of a person to freely follow that judgment of conscience.  The second is the full acceptance of the equal dignity and gifts of women in the Church.

In Gaudium et Spes (#16) the Council recognizes both that “In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience” and also that “Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity.”  If that is true, then even in the case of living out one’s religious convictions, where one’s salvation is at stake, we cannot coerce someone to believe and live contrary to their conscience.  The way The Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae, #2) words it: “This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits….Therefore the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature. In consequence, the right to this immunity continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it and the exercise of this right is not to be impeded, provided that just public order be observed.” This right to religious freedom might seem self-evident, and though that was not the case prior to the Second Vatican Council in many of the theological discussions on this issue, it is fairly universally accepted today.  What is not as accepted, however, is applying that same principle of religious liberty to the freedom of conscience within the Church by its baptized members.

What might the Church look like in one hundred years or more, as we continue to negotiate this terrain?  For example, Pope (now St.) Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae opened up a huge divide between the vast majority of married couples and the Church’s teaching on accepted methods for regulating fertility.  What does that mean for the Church?  That the teaching has not been received and so is not yet part of the capital ‘T’ tradition mentioned above and so can be modified?  That if someone cannot accept that teaching, then they are not truly Catholic? That as long as couples are making a decision with a well-formed conscience, we should accept the reality that there are different ways to live out an openness to children in marriage and that holiness can be found in all those ways?  Now add to the mix committed, practicing Catholics who live in ways that the Church does not recognize as truly marriage; Catholics who believe a nation has the right and at times a duty to develop and maybe use nuclear arms or who justify indiscriminate killing by their nation in war; Catholics who reject the Church’s teaching on care for immigrants and refugees but peacefully participate in Eucharist every Sunday; Catholics who are ardent advocates of the death penalty for certain crimes; to say nothing about all the ethical challenges that we face in light of the lightning fast development of artificial intelligence, which, I am sure, will lead some to question the Church’s teaching authority on these issues as well.  Depending on how the Church asserts the importance of its teaching authority vis-à-vis the dignity and freedom of conscience on various issues will play a large role in shaping the Church over the next century.

A second key area shaping the Church of the future that flows from this recovery of the primacy of baptismal identity is the extent to which the Church integrates the equal dignity and full gifts of women within the Church’s structure.  Because the Church embraces so many different cultures, it is difficult to envision just one approach being lived out by the Church universal.  Currently we have some within the Church still advocating a supportive or subordinate role for women, tying it to a traditional view that men are best suited to lead, that wives are to serve the husband and family, that women’s gifts are more to nurture and become mothers.  For some members of the Church, were the Church to ordain women as priests, there is likelihood of a schism.  On the other hand, to others within the Church the ordination of women as priests (and even as bishops), based on discerning who has the gifts for the role, is something long overdue.  Add to that two centuries of history, where women have risen to the top leadership positions in every profession and walk of life, including leading nations and faith communities, and have demonstrated that such gifts of leadership need not be gender-specific.  There have been a few baby steps taken by Pope Francis—allowing women to be voting members at a Synod of Bishops, appointing more women to key positions within the structure of the Vatican Curia, and leaving open the question of the ordination of women as deacons—but the integration of women into all aspects of the Church’s structure is still too uncertain to predict.  How far the Church universal embraces that integration will have a profound effect on the shape of the Church in the next hundred years.

I believe the Second Vatican Council’s recovery of the primacy of Baptism opened a pathway toward a full appreciation of the gifts of all its member, potentially allowing decisions about who is called to do what to be based on discerning charisms, and so not gender-specific.  I do not pretend to know how the Church universal will ultimately receive such teaching, but what is not uncertain is the dignity of every baptized member of the Church and a respect for each person’s gifts.  And so, I end this Part Three with one possibility.  It would be very in keeping with the pathway opened up by the Second Vatican Council, and a recognition that traditions that are not core to the faith even if long-standing can change, were a Pope to open the role of Cardinal to the full membership of the Church—bishops, priests and deacons, lay women and men, men and women religious—so that the key advisors to the Pope, the heads of Vatican Dicasteries, and the papal electors reflect more visibly the wisdom of all the baptized faithful united in service of the Church universal.  What might the Church look like in one hundred years, if that were to happen?