(The Furrow, April 2002, pp.228-235)
God speaks through events and facts as well as through the words of prophets. He speaks to the whole of humanity through creation. He spoke in a special way to the Hebrews through exodus and covenant. He speaks to us through his son, Jesus, who is the ‘Word made flesh’ (John 1.14), ‘the image of the invisible God’ (Col. 1.15). He continues to speak through “the bible of life”, that is to say, through human experience evaluated through the perspective of faith. Each day is a new page of God’s revelation opened up for us.
One could say that God’s approach is both deductive and inductive. He gives us principles from which to draw conclusions applicable to life, and he gives us the experience of life from which to draw principles for guidance. Both approaches are necessary; they complement each other. Theology is not all “handed-down” from the “top” but is also a movement up from “below”. In addition, it moves from the general to the particular and from the particular to the general. Similarly, the bible, while providing answers to questions, also presents questions to answer. God not only draws us from the past, he leads us into the future.
Some examples of this process of mutual interaction, drawn from the faith and life of the Christian community, may be helpful by way of illustration.
The practice of the confession of sin
In the early centuries of the Christian era, the public confession of sin was associated with baptism, and was done once in a lifetime. For this reason, it was considered best, in the fourth century, to delay baptism until the point of death. St. Basil of Cappadocia was not baptized until he was twenty five, although he was of a third generation Christian family, while Saint John Chrysostom, who had a Christian mother, was not baptized until about he was about twenty. From there, a move towards more frequent confession began to develop, driven in part by the challenge of responding to people who had abandoned the faith in persecution but later sought reconciliation.
The process seems to have been that individual priests, in response to the pastoral needs before them, began to hear confessions of sin more often. It was in Ireland, in particular, that monks developed the practice of more frequent confession. They took it with them to the continent of Europe in the centuries which followed the collapse of the Roman Empire. Others imitated their initiative until it became a general practice, so that the fourth Lateran Council in 1215 could prescribe that ‘Every faithful of either sex who has reached the age of discretion should, at least once a year, faithfully confess all his sins in secret to his own priest’. (1)
The process seems to have involved a movement from individual initiative to group imitation, from there to an accepted practice, then to an official policy, and finally, to a doctrine received and passed on.
It has not stopped there. Today, in most countries, the sacrament of penance has largely died out. Nobody expected that, planned it or led it – but it happened. Clearly, something is afoot, from “the bottom” up, so to speak. From “the top” has come the message that, apart from very exceptional cases, general absolution is out. The result is stalemate. It is too early yet to say where this is leading, though human experience and church tradition converge on the idea of death giving way to new life. Neuner and Dupuis state, ‘No other sphere of the Church’s life has, perhaps, undergone through the centuries such radical changes as has the penitential discipline’. (2)
At present our thinking on how theology is done is weighted in favour of a deductive approach, as if it should mainly be a matter of inferring conclusions from established principles. We need to complement that more fully with an inductive approach, whereby we draw theological conclusions from what is happening in the life and practice of the community of faith. When we do so we are ‘listening to what the Spirit is saying to the churches’. (Revelation 2.7) This method is not a new departure but a shift of emphasis which includes both approaches, so that praxis and doxa interact on each other to the benefit of both.
Human sexuality
A second example – one which raises more questions than it answers – can be found in changes that have taken place in attitudes to human sexuality and relationships, and which are still evolving today. There appears to be a widespread rejection – not too strong a word – of official church teaching on matters relating to human sexuality. To cite an example: a recent survey of young educated Irish adults reported that ‘The very meaning of sexual intercourse appears to be changing in a significant way…’ (3)
What is the Spirit saying in the voice of the Irish about human sexuality? Are the young Irish saying that it is an integral element of humanity and human relationships in a way not adequately recognized by previous generations? My generation was brought up with the idea that the less sex the better, and the “higher way” of celibacy was to have none at all. Clearly that is not the attitude prevailing among the young today.
Are we asking ourselves the questions, or are we so sure we already have the answers that we feel there is no need to ask? What is the Spirit saying about human sexuality and relationships to the men and women who are ministers to each other of the sacrament of matrimony, and who alone have experience of married life and love? Pierre Teilhard de Chardin may have been close to the truth when he wrote, ‘The greatest objection that can be brought against Christianity in our time, and the real source of the distrust which insulates entire blocks of humanity from the influence of the Church has nothing to do with historical or theological difficulties. It is the suspicion that our religion makes its followers less human’.
The young are not listening to us. They probably are listening to Van Morrison when he sings, ‘If you live the life you love, you will receive the blessings from above’. Are we listening?
Laypeople in the church
A third example may also be of help. In mission territories, lay women and men do most of the work formerly done by priests in local churches. The Annuario Pontificio for 1997 states that catechists, small Christian community leaders, and religious brothers and sisters do 79% of all pastoral work done in the church, while only 21% is done by bishops and priests – virtually four-fifths to one-fifth! (4)
If “vocations” to the priesthood had continued as they had been in the boom decades from the nineteen forties to the nineteen sixties, matters would have been different. It is likely that the role of the laity would have been less, and not so readily sought. Priests (including myself) might have said that large-scale lay involvement was premature, or unwise, or not desired by the people themselves. What changed our minds was tangible necessity on the ground. We changed because we had to. Saint Augustine, a practical psychologist as well as a theologian, described the process: ‘Let necessity be experienced from without and consent is born within’. (Letter 93.15) Having seen how beneficial, indeed indispensable, an active laity were in the church we looked around for a theological basis for it and found it already there, in the theology of baptism. Out of the school of experience came the re-awakening of a dormant doctrine – the priesthood of all the faithful.
Standing back for a broad look
The evolution of new forms of the sacrament of reconciliation has stalled.
In the area of human sexuality, the young have quietly made up their minds and gone their own way, a way very different from even one generation before.
The evidence is that where the priesthood of all the faithful is recognized, where laypeople are trusted and have decision-making authority, growth takes place.
Where is this leading?
What is the Spirit saying to the churches? With what facts and events on the ground is God writing, as once he wrote his commandments in the stone of the mountain? (Deut. 5.22) Let me point to just one area of significance, that of the priesthood, with specific reference to numbers, age and distribution.
Numbers of priests in the church
In Ireland in the year 2000, 60% of priests were over 50. There were as many priests over 80 as under 29. (5)
Scotland: Archbishop Keith O’Brien of Edinburgh said, ‘In ten years we project that we’ll have half the number of priests we do now. I’ve ordained nobody to the priesthood this year and accepted nobody for the seminary, and the same situation applies in the archdiocese of Glasgow, which is three times bigger than ours’. (6)
England and Wales: between 1964 and 1997, the number of priests dropped by 26%, from 7,714 to 5,712. The figure could soon go down to 4,000, most of them elderly. (7)
France had 45,000 priests in 1945, with fewer than 10,000 expected by 2005.
In Europe as a whole ‘clergy will soon have an average age of seventy’. (8) In many dioceses, by the year 2000, between 30 and 50 per cent of European parishes will have no resident priest. (9) And in 2002?
In the USA, parishes without a resident priest have risen from 549 to 2843. Active diocesan priests dropped by almost 21% in numbers between 1983 and 1998, and religious priests in the same period by over 30%. One quarter of all priests are off mission either because of age, health or another reason.
Of Latin America one writer has said, ‘The greatest exodus [of priests] the Catholic world has seen since the time of Luther is under way’. (10)
World-wide, between 1978 and 1997, the number of priests in the church declined from 421,000 to 404,000, a drop of 4%. (11)
Age of priests
It has been estimated that, by 2000, only one priest in eight in the church would be less than 34 years of age. (12)
Distribution of priests
Europe and North America together have 45% of the world’s Catholics and 77% of priests. Latin America and the Philippines together also have 45% of Catholics but have only 12.6% of priests. That is a 6 to 1 proportion in favour of Europe and North America. (13)
In 1998, 52% of the world’s priests were living in Europe, while the biggest growth area of Catholic population in the world is in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Third World’s population grew by 28% in the years 1984 to 1994. In the same period, the number of priests in it grew by 7%, i.e. at one-quarter of the growth rate of population, so that the number of people per priest is rising steadily. (14)
Between 1978 and 1998, the number of people per priest in Africa rose from 3251 to 4483, while in South America it increased by a third.
And looking to the wider horizon, ad gentes: ‘The number of those who do not know Christ and do not belong to the Church is constantly on the increase. Indeed, since the end of the [Second Vatican] Council it has almost doubled’. (15)
I have taken a broad look at numbers, age and distribution of priests. A fourth factor – health and morale – is immeasurable, but real. A fifth factor – departures – I have barely touched on, as statistics are difficult to find, but everyone knows it is only too real. The anecdotal evidence reinforces the overall picture: just look around at any clerical gathering.
Questions arising
Through what processes are we listening to the Body of Christ? What is God saying to us in those facts which may be his words written on the ground with his finger? If God speaks through events no less than words, what is the message? Are we afraid to ask questions for fear of what the answers might be?
An inspiration
Perhaps we can take courage from the sermon preached by Pope Saint Leo the Great on the day of his episcopal ordination in 440 AD. Quoting 1 Peter 2. 5, 9, he said: ‘Although the church is ordered in various ranks, we are all one in Christ. In the unity of our faith and baptism we enjoy an undivided fellowship, and a dignity common to us all. In baptism the sign of the cross makes kings of all who are reborn in Christ, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit consecrates them priests. So, apart from the particular obligations of our pastoral ministry, any Christian who has the gifts of rational and spiritual understanding knows he is a member of a kingly race, and shares in the priestly office.’ Leo seems to be saying that the essential difference between clergy and laity lies, not in their priesthood, but in their orders.
Where does this lead?
Have we not, in practice, reduced priesthood to the ordained as, in practice, we have reduced mission to missionaries? But anything which diminishes or narrows an aspect of the Christian faith should set alarm bells ringing in us and raise questions about directions.
Is the present reality one of the terminal decline in the First World, and perhaps beyond it, of the priesthood as we have understood it in recent centuries?
Do we believe that we today are entitled to the same freedom as the Christian community had in Acts 6.1-7, when they responded to the pastoral needs of their time by setting up a new order, the deaconate? If the church in the early Constantinian period was able to develop the three orders of bishop, priest and deacon out of New Testament teaching on ministry – but in a way which went substantially beyond it – does the church of our time not have that freedom also? Are we tying ourselves into a straitjacket?
If we recognize that there is only one Christian priesthood, not two, is it not time to make a re-appraisal of the biblical basis and pastoral implications of the distinction between the general priesthood of all the faithful and the ministerial priesthood of the ordained?
If a woman were to ask for admission to the priesthood, is it not fully appropriate to respond by asking her why she wishes to receive what she already has? From baptism she already has the one priesthood of Christ. What she lacks are orders, that is to say, a mission, or a commissioning, to exercise that priesthood in a particular area or task.
May the Christian community not ordain carpenters, fishermen, tax-collectors, tent-makers and workers in the purple-dye trade to a mission derived from their baptism when they were anointed with the chrism of salvation as Christ was anointed priest, prophet and king? There are many viri probati and mulieres probatae on the ground who have shown themselves over a period of years, often in testing situations, to be leaders of the local Christian community, exercising the role of priest, prophet and king. In such situations, has the Body of Christ not already spoken and chosen them for its service even if no hierarchical approval has been sought or given? The New Testament affords many such examples.
An example from relatively recent times is that of Blessed Victoire Rasoamanarivo of Antananarivo, Madagascar, who held the faith-community together through a prolonged and savage persecution in the nineteenth century when Queen Ranaválona (La Sanguinaire) had some 80,000 Christians killed by being thrown off the cliff on which her palace was built. The Catholic cathedral now stands on the same cliff, and Blessed Victoire’s tomb is near it. When missionaries were allowed to return to the country after the queen’s death, Victoire, a married woman, was “reduced to the lay state”. (It is significant perhaps that her tomb is outside the cathedral.) Yet she exercised the role of priest through enthusing the faithful and leading them in prayer; of prophet by finding meaning, speaking the truth and forth-telling the present; and of king by her courageous leadership. Was she not, in the fullest sense of the term, a priest, even though no bishop had imposed hands on her and she did not say Mass? What more did she need to do before meriting recognition of her priesthood? If God chose her for that task, as the evidence suggests, can anyone else say no? Isn’t there something simply wrong about the way she was treated by the church, wrong in a way which goes beyond hurt feelings and into the area of denial of the hand of God, wrong in a way which no beatification can put right? The church, we are told, cannot do other than Christ did. Yet Christ chose married men as his apostles, while the church excludes them. Did Jesus ordain bishops, priests and deacons?
The church in recent decades has experienced some sharp division over the issue of clerical celibacy. Is there not a way forward by stepping outside the framework within which that debate has taken place, namely, through the recognition of the one priesthood that all Christians have received in baptism?
The church has also experienced dis-appointment and pain at the departure from ministry of some who had been ordained only a few years before. I have seen this at first hand in mission territories and know how keenly people feel let down as they recall the joyous occasion of an ordination only a short time before. Is it not appropriate to ordain a person for a specified period, community, or task? Why not? It seems we have locked our minds into one view of priesthood: male, the product of a seminary, and ordained for life. If, instead, ordination were given for a fixed period, subject to renewal with the consent of the community, would that not obviate the situation of those men who are now like square pegs in a round hole, not happy in ecclesial ministry, perhaps because they made a mistake in entering it in the first place, or because of burnout, or because of not being accepted by the people for any number of different reasons? Would it not be better to give such people an honourable and worthy exit by allowing them to leave their ministry when a term of office was up?
Is God silent, or are we deaf?
Footnotes
1. J. Neuner and J. Dupuis, The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Statements of the Catholic Church, Collins, London, 1983, n.1608.
2. op.cit., p. 445.
3. Desmond O’Donnell OMI, “Young Educated Adults: a Survey”, Doctrine and Life, January 2002, pp. 32, 26.
4. See The Tablet, 19 June 1999, p.856.
5. Statistics from the Council for Research and Development of the Irish Bishops’ Conference, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, 2001.
6. The Tablet, 8 December 2001, p.1763.
7. Adrian Hastings, “Meeting the challenge”, The Tablet, 14 August 1999, p.1103.
8. Eamonn Conway, “A Europe without Priests?” The Furrow, June 1996, p.350.
9. Jan Kerkhofs SJ, “Europe needs Therapy”, The Tablet, 24 July 1999, p.1015-1016.
10. Paul Wilkes, “Facing the reality of gay priests”, The Tablet, 26 February 2000, p.258.
11. Annuario Pontificio 1997, quoted in The Tablet, 19 June 1999, p.856.
12. See Gerald Arbuckle SM, Refounding the Church: Dissent for Leadership, Chapman, London, 1993, p.61.
13. See Postquam Apostoli, Congregation for the Clergy, 25 March 1980, no. 9, in Austin Flannery OP, Vatican II, More Post-Conciliar Documents, Vol. 2, p. 366.
14. See Cardinal Jozef Tomko, The Tablet, 20 May 1995, p.646.
15. Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Redemptoris Missio, 7 December 1990, n.3.