Forum: Constituencies

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According to the latest information available to us Catholics are remaining true to their faith and its Roman Catholic Church institution  And, this is despite an unrelenting attack  upon that Faith and that institution by the public media and others. That is the real news and it is generally unreported by that same public media.

It is not that the Faith and its institution are without their problems. Three principal constituencies of these realities are in question today; they are women,  young people and Hispanics. The Catholic Church in the United States is presently in danger of losing all three constituencies. Their loss would be most serious, if not lethal.

The present loyalty to the Church institution is found mostly among older folks those who make-up the pre-Vatican II generation and the Vatican II generation,  both of whom are advanced in age. Young people and Hispanics, who presently hold the largest block in the community and one that is quickly growing larger, are not nearly so loyal to the institution. Women are also much less loyal
than they prseviously were.

And, all of this is happening at a time when, this writer believes, Catholicism is in better shape than ever. The question is more loyalty to the institution than to the content of Faith, if recent polls are to be believed. That is where, I believe, the chief confusion lies. The clergy is doing a rather poor job of presenting the value of the institution to its lay members. That is placing an immense responsibility upon the priests of the Church, who are terribly overworked now and generally popular with their people. The bishops and other top officials of the institution are not understood to be so popular with most members of the Catholic laity.

This responsibility is theirs, however, and has been chosen by them. That they are both overworked and popular is beyond question. The fact is, however, they are busy about many things that have little to do with their profession, such as raising money and building buildings, and, at the same time, neglecting more important duties, such as providing spiritual leadership for the members of their
parishes. The priests are institutional men and figures in a manner that most lay people are not. By exaggerating the place of the institution in people’s lives they diminish the purpose of it and the real need for it. Most people believe the institution is valuable, even necessary, although fallible and secondary – a view that  is not shared by most of their priests.

That this view of the institution is promoted by the top officials in the institution is not surprising. As a matter of fact, it is to be expected – but not believed by priests, who should know better. Thus, the priests are responsible for the problem.

That the ones who are responsible for the problem are not blamed is also not surprising. After all, they are decent and hardworking men, and their position is easily understood, even by those who, in practice, disagree with it. For the average lay person, the work one does and the family one has are primary Church and State membership are secondary. These facts are not true for the average priest and that is the source of the confusion. For priests, who have no other employment and no family, the Church is everything, it is primary.

Being realistic with reference to the Church is most important, today. The Church is necessary, even essential, but secondary in most people’s lives. To be unrealistic with reference to the Church, to make it seem more important than it actually is to most people, is not helpful to  the Church itself nor to its members.

This is not to deny the social nature of people It is, however, to balance it against the sacredness of the individual person, who is truly primary and whose conscience is the final moral arbitrer. After all, the Church exists for the welfare of the individual person not the other way around, as Jesus Christ said and as the Church itself constantly insists.

There is no reason, at the present time, to call for major changes in the Church’s social organization. The hierarchical mechanism of the Church should stay in place. The role of the priest-pastor should be clarified, however. The priest-pastor should remain the chief  operating officer of the parish. His role, however should be seen as principally that of a spiritual director. All other duties can be
assumed by others, principally lay persons. These persons can be appointed or elected by a variety of local mechanisms.

At the present time, evangelicals are attracting large groups of Americans to their Churches. The reason for this seems to be their ability to give individual attention to their participants. Churches that are more intimate are thriving today, and Churches that are more impersonal are losing members. The Catholic Church is considered to be among the most impersonal of Churches and is rapidly losing members. The suggested role for priest-pastors coupled with the improvements stemming from Vatican Council II would offer promise of correcting this situation, we think. In any event, to allow the resent situation to continue would be to go along with the decline of the institution.

Vatican Council II claimed the Catholic Church is a partner with all groups, political, religious and otherwise seeking to advance the welfare of human beings. It further insisted on the tolerance of all these bodies, listing their individual goodness, since they all subscribe to the charter of the freedom and equality of all human beings. It claimed the Catholic Church did not consider itself
apart from these bodies, but one with them in the struggle foar advancing human rights. The Council thus described the aim or goal of the Catholic Church; it is to promote the human welfare of everyone. It believes this was the aim or goal of Jesus of Nazareth and thus is the aim or goal of the Catholic Church, which is the community of disciples of his.

Within the community of the Church, Jesus Christ, is far and away the most important figure. His perspective on God and life is the perspective of his followers. His Way of Life is their Way of Life, and his aims or goals are shared by them. The Church, which is defined in Vatican Council II as the People of God has both an essential horizontal description and a vertical one. It exists to promote the welfare of human beings and works in partnership with other institutions with similar goals.

The Church is made up of three different groups of people with different jobs. They are the leaders of the community, the bishops, the scholars of the community, for the most part active members of its universities, and the general membership or laity. They are all basically equal, but possess different responsibilities.

The Church exists for the welfare of its individual members, and not the other way around. The individual person is sacred, equal to all others, and free.

What do you think?

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