This is my neighborhood last week, on a perfect autumn day. It reminds me that we are walking a road together, that there are new roads being forged and that in between, there's both beauty and barrenness as new creations come to life.
This blog is part one of two sparked by Jean's generous, honest and vulnerable blogs. Grateful, Jean!
For those of you who didn't have a chance yet to read our guest blogger Jean Hawley's three part series on how the Holy Spirit is sparking her thoughts and guiding her research, do take a look here. With the Spirit's guidance, she's uncovered a specific relationship that needs some conversion for synodality to take root in our US Church. After reading the blogs, I asked Jean if she'd be ok with me lifting out some synodal themes for those of you on the #synodjourney with us, and she agreed. So that's what this blog will do, and a little more.
For Jean, her experience as a Lay Ecclesial Minister (capitalized because she is formed and commissioned to this ministry in the Diocese of Richmond, VA) is the context within which she is writing. Her spark to think more about this came from an unusual place: her commissioning certificate hanging askew on her office wall. (A note to all of us: the Holy Spirit will use all forms of communication to reach us!) So she began to think about her designated role, her experience of it personally and the shared experience of other LEMs in light of the call to synodality and wondering, "What is askew?"
Here are areas where Jean's ponderings align with the Final Synod Document (now provisionally released in English by the Vatican as a "working translation" ): the conversion of relationships, the necessity to be together in mission, and the discernment for mission. This blog and the next will take a look at these three areas for two purposes: to demonstrate how to listen to the voice of the Spirit, and to help us all begin to realize the work that still needs to be done in the US Catholic Church to become synodal.
So first, the very "crookedness" of Jean's certificate led her to ask the question, "What is askew about the role and relationship of LEM's to the US Church?" While the final synod document does not name Lay Ecclesial Ministers as one of the relationships that need conversion, Jean's experience makes it clear it does. It's not enough for the US Bishops and other clergy to dismiss this important work under the guise of "we already have women in designated ministry roles." Those women are not consistently experiencing the conditions wherein their designated roles and their Spirit-given gifts can flourish and the mission better carried out. This specific sin against women falls within the sins the clergy named during the Penitential Service that opened the final synod session. It's a real sin, and Jean's blogs give one name and face to a victim. ONE. According to the USCCB's most recent data, there are 30,632 paid lay ecclesial ministers in the US (and it's worth noting that data came from 2018...six years ago.)
The final synod document begins acknowledging the woundedness in the Body of Christ and names the various abuses of power. It does not specifically name the abuses of power leveled against Lay Ecclesial Ministers. But, in a spirit of generosity, let us just put this abuse of power within the context of abuses against women since the latest figures available indicate that nearly 80% of LEMs are female. One of the elements that contributes to that imbalance is the poor pay and working hours just below those which qualify for benefits. It's one area that should be evaluated in light of Catholic Social Teaching's call for the dignity of work and the rights of workers to a living wage. It's one sin among the many LEMs live with as they serve.
The document goes on to call for a conversion of relationships so that they are able to be co-responsible for the mission Christ created the Church to carry out. Jean's blogs name some of the areas in need of conversion within the role of Lay Ecclesial Minister in order for them to be fully co-responsible:
Respect for their formation and ecclesial designation from the clergy and the People of God
Clarification around the transferrability of their commissioning
Increased understanding within the baptized of the role of a Lay Ecclesial Minister and how that is specifically being carried out in the local or diocesan community
Delegation of authority to the Lay Ecclesial Minister in accord with their formation, experience and responsibility
Financial and scheduling support for their ongoing formation
Expansion of the understanding of baptism and its role in providing the foundation out of which all ministry flows
Participation in decision-making and decision-taking commensurate with their role
Why is the conversion of this relationship so important? Because the mission that is the Church, the sharing with all the world the healing, hopeful, new life offered by Jesus Christ cannot be done by a single clergy person assigned to one parish, or a Bishop to a diocese. The sheer magnitude of the mission, and the sheer woundedness of God's beloved humankind needs the full co-responsibility, yes, of all the baptized. Already among us are called, gifted, formed and commissioned people who are not recognized as full partners in the teaching, sanctifying and governing role of the Church's leaders. They are already in the mission field, prepared to serve despite the ways in which they are diminished. It can't continue if there is to be a synodal Church in the US. The mission field is too large, the wounds too numerous, the poor's cries getting louder, the earth's groans more prevalent.
The last paragraphs of the first section of the Final Document are sub-titled "Together for Mission." I wrote in the margin of my printed copy, "LEMs?" in light of Jean's blogs. Why? Because the paragraph begins hopefully with these words: "Throughout its history the Church has adopted ministries apart from those of the ordained in response to the needs of the community and the mission. Charisms take the form of ministries when they are publicly recognized by the community and by those responsible for leading the community. In this way they are placed at the service of the mission in a stable and consistent way (75)." And then it does not acknowledge Lay Ecclesial Ministers/Ministry, which is instituted by ritual after the ministers have satisfactorily met the "personal conditions " and the "formation pathways that must be taken to access these ministries (ibid.)." Something is askew, even still.
I'll end this blog with this quote from the final document, which I want to read with hope
The lay faithful, both men and women, should be given greater opportunities for participation, also exploring new forms of service and ministry in response to the pastoral needs of our time in a spirit of collaboration and differentiated co- responsibility. In particular, some concrete needs have emerged from the synodal process: (I am naming just one of the five named): effective recognition of the dignity and respect for the rights of those who are employed in the Church and its institutions. (77)
Jean's certificate proclaims a truth. There is something askew with the relationship of Lay Ecclesial Ministers to the institutional Church, to the clergy with whom most long to truly serve respecting one another's vocational call and charisms, and to the People of God who still do not understand the role and struggle to respect these faithful servants. So, yes we have women in ministry in the Church in the US, but they are not fully co-responsible partners in mission.
The second blog will take a look at what that conversion of relationship might look like when it takes on a missional focus: together in mission. And as many of the synodal documents have already noted, men in this ministerial role also need the same kinds of conditions in order to flourish and many do not have them. Conversion in this relationship benefits women, men, and mission.
Let us all remember we are living in volatile, uncertain, chaotic and ambiguous times. Take a look at the Church in a VUCA world, as together we walk the #synodjourney. Let us pray, and let us work together synodally...for we make the road by walking it together!
Photo credit: Deborah Stollery (c) 2024
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