August, 1976 - CROSSROADS - Page 7
INSH3MT
By FR. JOHN P. BRADLEY
The following piece consists of excerpts
from the article titled “Laity” by Mr. Hugh
Kay, which appears in Volume 8 of the 10-
volume The Catholic Layman’s Library.
Published by Good Will Publishers, Inc.,
this work was edited by Father John P.
Bradley, President of Belmont Abbey
College, and places emphasis on the
teachings of the Second Vatican Council. In
its preparation Father Bradley enlisted
contributors from many parts of the world.
CROSSROADS thanks Good Will
Publishers, Inc. for permission to use the
following excerpts.
Few factors have more consistently weakened the
church’s impact on the world than its own interior
fragmentation:: the division of clergy and laity into
castes. Even where the relationship has been benign,
priest and people have been alienated.
Clericalism, redolent of social privilege, has for its
motif a paternalism fatal to fatherhood, an
authoritarian structure bringing authority into
disrepute, and an all-embracing control dimming the
layman’s sense of missionary obligation.
To such divisions, a lay propensity to adulation, to
treating the priest as a father-figure whose duty it is to
bear all the burdens and make all the moral decisions,
has contributed every bit as much as the layman’s
frequent waywardness. The worst result has been to
paralyze the layman’s conscience and activity, to
foster the notion that the mechanics of grace are much
the same as alchemy, and to introduce the note of
automatism into the life of faith.
The Second Vatican Council has summed up in a
simple sentence the situation as it ought to be. In its
Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests (No. 6) it
says this of the priests: “In the name of their
bishop...they gather the family of God together into one
united brotherhood. In union with the Holy Sprit they
lead them through Christ to God the Father.”
The root of the problem lies in a misunderstanding of
the church’s nature and the layman’s share in it. The
church is not a professional body of clerics adhered to
by a lay majority on the periphery. The truth was laid
bare by Pope Pius XII in an allocution to new car
dinals:
The church is the society of those who,
under the supernatural influence of grace,
in the perfection of their personal dignity as
sons of God and in the harmonious
development of every human bent and
energy, build up the mighty framework of
the community of men. From this aspect.
Venerable Brethren, the faithful, and more
precisely the laity, are in the front line of
the church’s life; through them, the church
is the vital principle of human society.
Consequently, they particularly must have
an ever more clear consciousness, not only
of belonging to the church, but of being the
church, that is the community of the faithful
on earth under the guidance of the common
head, the pope, and of the bishops in com
munion with him.
There was initially some excuse for clericalism,
arising as it did from the need for a professional reply
to a skeptical world determined to secularize society
and exclude the supernatural. But in this state of
confrontation the accent fell on the hierarchical church
instead of the “community of the faithful”; on the
organizational church, not on a “people” endowed with
a kingly priesthood, charismatic and prophetic.
The language of law seemed almost to replace the
voice of the Spirit who “cries in our hearts.” The
church stood out as a power structure, not a fellowship.
It sought to make common cause with secular
knowledge and values through the priest-scientist,
later through the priest-worker and what has been
described as the clericalized lay organization. But the
layman continued to see himself and be seen as merely
a helper.
This tendency was not unconnected with a profound
distrust of the world, an attitude productive of op
posing errors. On the one hand, a pre-Renaissance
spirituality not untinged with early heresy regarded
the world as a place of exile for the spiritual man.
Spiritual detachment was conceived, not as Christian
“unworldliness,” but as an aloofness from a world the
soul hoped to escape from into salvation. The pilgrim
sought heaven not by way of God’s creation, but in
spite of it, outlawed as it was by the taint of original
sin.
On the other hand, a medieval concept urged the
church to absorb and wholly control the secular world
and, when this was seen to have totally failed, the
ecclesiastic simply took his place as gladiator in the
political arena.
The beginnings of rediscovered wisdom came with
Leo XIII’s encyclical, Immortale Dei, which marked
the boundaries of the spiritual and temporal
sovereignties. Then came Pius XI’s call to Catholic
Action and commitment to the lay apostolate, a theme
further developed by Pius XII. Meanwhile, an
evolving theology, now enshrined in the documents of
the Second Vatican Council, was establishing an
authentic perspective.
This theology places emphasis on the truth that the
supernatural is not a sign of contradiction to the
natural. Rather, the order of creation is to be fertilized
and sanctified by the order of redemption. This is a
community task to be effected by the whole church, the
people of God, and one from which not one single
Christian dare absent himself; it is a task which no
clerical elite can tackle alone. It is not just a question
of numbers, but of the missionary task directly im
posed on each Christian personally by Christ in
baptism and confirmation.
The task of the Christian, be he cleric or layman, is to
consecrate himself and the world around him to God.
Every Christian act, provided it expresses man’s
hunger for God and helps men to share God’s life, has a
value that can be incorporated into the sacrifice of the
Mass; and the Mass is deprived of meaning unless it be
the act of the Christian community incorporated into
the sacramental Christ.
The layman’s apostolic role is not to usurp temporal
authority, but to influence the temporal order toward
God, to integrate modern secular values into Christian
values, and to make the community Christ-oriented,
ready to receive the fullness of the gift of God in the
church.
The layman’s task is to bring his Christ-informed
mind to bear on the world’s problems. His spiritual
insights are to blend with his secular knowledge to
make him a catalyst for social construction and
reform. As the late Cardinal Suhard urged, such a
Christian must think fast in a world that has
discovered speed and broken away from us. A
Christian’s inventiveness should make him a pioneer,
not a follower....
The church is not a democracy, and the laity’s
functions are not deliberative. But the layman enjoys
a kind of complementary authority by virtue of the
apostolic character received in baptism and con
firmation, and also by virtue of his expertise. This
“authority” is not derived from an episcopal mandate,
but is exercised in dialogue with and ultimate sub
mission to the hierarchy....
Opening its discussion on the status and mission of
the laity, Vatican II’s Constitution on the Church (No.
31) describes the laity as those faithful who are “by
baptism made one body with Christ and are
established among the people of God. They are in their
own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetic, and
kingly functions of Christ. They carry out their own
part in the mission of the whole Christian people with
respect to the church and the world.”
It is the laity’s vocation to “seek the kingdom of God
by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them
according to the plan of God,” so that, “by exercising
their proper function and being led by the spirit of the
gospel they can work for the sanctification of the world
from within, in the manner of leaven” (No. 31).
Though some members of the church are appointed
as teachers, dispensers of mysteries, and shepherds,
“all share a true equality with regard to the dignity
and activity common to all the faithful for the building
up of the Body of Christ” (No. 32).
The lay apostolate is “a participation in the saving
mission of the church itself,” and “through their
baptism and confirmation all are commissioned to that
apostolate by the Lord Himself.” In a special way the
laity are called “to make the church present and
operative in those places and circumstances where
only through them can she become the salt of the
earth’’ (No. 33).
R. GRADY RANKIN
R. Grady Rankin,
Esteemed friend and first
Chairman of the Board of
Advisors of Belmont
Abbey College, died July
13. He was 75.
He is survived by two
sons, R. Grady Rankin
Jr., of Naples, Florida,
and David H. Rankin of
Charlotte; one daughter,
Mrs. Joseph W.
Lineberger of Belmont;
two brothers, Lawrence
S. Rankin, Sr., of
Gastonia and R. Pinkney
Rankin, Sr., of Charlotte.
His wife, the former Ruth
Boyce, preceded him in
death. ;
Mr. Rankin received an
honorary Doctor of Laws
degree at the Abbey in
1958. He was a respected
civic leader and served
Gaston County as a
member of the County
Board of Commissioners
and treasurer of the City
of Gastonia. He was a
member of the North
Carolina Board of Con-
servation and
Development, a member
of the North Carolina
Senate and president pro
tern, and Man of the Year
of the N. C. Citizens
Association in 1960.
The family requested
that in lieu of flowers,
contributions be made tp
Belmont Abbey College,
the Presbyterian Home
of Charlotte, or the Board
of Pensions of the
Western North Carolina
Conference of United
Methodist Churches.
MRS. BERNICE
MOORE
Mrs. Bernice Moore,
57, of 115 Belmont Road,
died Sunday, July 18 at
her home.
She is survived by her
husband, William Moore,
4 sons, Solister Moore,
and William Moore, Jr.,
both of Charlotte, and
Raymond and Bryant,
both of Belmont; 6
daughters, Mrs. Rhelta
Bass of Charlotte, and
Misses Betty, Ncvesa,
Pamela, and Theresa
Moore, and Mrs. Deborah
Lockhart, all of Belmont;
3 brothers and 2 sisler, all
of Belmont.
Funeral services were
held Thursday, July 22 at
2:00 p.m. at O’Connor
A.M.E. Zion Church,
followed by burial at
Henry’s Chapel A. M. E.
Zion Church Cemctary.
Bernice’s dedication to
the Abbey for the past 24
years will be greatly
missed as will her happy
humming while she went
about her specialty,
baking.