The Starting Point for a Theology of Ministry

The Catholic Church in the United States experienced Vatican II as an event and catalyst for change. Parishes rapidly caught fire as the optimism and enthusiasm of a church responding to the times were transmitted from the debates in Rome and circulated in the council documents. At the opening of the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII spoke of the need to "shake up" the church (he used the word aggiornamento) — to bring the church up to date — while at the same time maintaining faithfulness to its deepest traditions.

After the close of the council, the Catholic Church in the United States experienced its own aggiornamento. The new vision of community offered by Vatican II combined with the social and political upheavals of the 1960s to shape for American Catholics a new understanding of the church's mission. Prepared by their involvement in earlier groups like the Catholic Worker Movement and the Catholic Interracial Council, active laypeople and involved clergy immersed themselves in the peace and social justice movements of the day. Activism was in the air. Daniel Berrigan was jailed in protest of the war in Vietnam, while the Catholic Workers helped organize mass demonstrations in New York City. Fr. Theodore Hesburgh served as a charter member of the United States Civil Rights Commission, while countless individuals involved in the Christian Family Movement marched in Selma and Montgomery.

Catholic activism not only touched society's issues of war, racism, and social injustice, but also extended into the life of the church community. As priests, women religious, and parishioners took up the social causes of the 1960s, the laity entered the churches actively serving the community. Once confined to a "lay apostolate" that involved a limited and ambiguous Christian witness in the workplace or to volunteer services like coaching parish sports teams, collecting clothes for charity, and cleaning church premises, the laity took up new roles in religious education and liturgy and, for the first time, called their work "ministry."

The transformation of parish ministries brought on by increasing lay involvement has called into question patterns of ministry and ways of understanding the church that extend back centuries. A paradigm shift — a transformation of the basic images and understanding of ministry — is underway, led not so much by ideas as by pastoral change. This change can be seen in parishes around the country where laypeople have taken up tasks formerly reserved for the priest (such as visiting the sick on behalf of the parish, administering communion, overseeing parish finances, leading prayer groups and prayer services) and created positions in ministry unimaginable before Vatican II (the parish director of religious education, the liturgy coordinator, the social justice coordinator, and so on). The theologian reflects on issues raised by new experiences and searches for models to match a reality already taking shape. Where does one begin? In tackling any of a host of hotly debated issues surrounding ministry today — the accountability of bishops to their dioceses, mandatory celibacy for priests, the possibility of laypeople functioning as pastors or exercising sacramental ministries traditionally reserved to the ordained — the specific position taken or the arguments advanced are not as important as the unspoken assumptions that guide the discussion. Where one begins often determines where one ends, for differing theological premises can contribute to very different conclusions about ministry.

Two Doors into Ministry

Reflecting on his own changing theology of ministry, the French Dominican and theological advisor at the Second Vatican Council Yves Congar remarked: "In general terms it may be said that the door whereby one enters on a question decides the chances of a happy or a less happy solution." Con-gar described two starting points that illustrate two different approaches to ministry. If we enter the discussion on church and ministry through the door of the hierarchical priesthood and consider the bishop or presbyter as exclusive recipients of a direct call from Christ and as paradigmatic for all ministry, then it is difficult to see the layperson as anything more than a helper or participant in work that properly belongs to the ordained. The men of the hierarchy become the sacred ministers, while the laity serve Christ in the world — not passive, but somewhat secondary. On the other hand, if we enter the discussion through the door of the community, then we are better equipped to describe the whole church as receiving a mission from Christ, and we are able to affirm a diversity of active services within this community: one mission, many ministries. Congar admitted that his early writings on the laity followed the first path; only later did he see the necessity of the second, of starting with the community: "It would then be necessary to substitute for the linear scheme a scheme where the community appears as the enveloping reality within which the ministries, even the instituted sacramental ministries, are placed as modes of service of what the community is called to be and do." Starting points imply presupposed frameworks, models for understanding church and ministry.

A generation later, Thomas O'Meara observed the development of Congar's theology and described the shift from a dividing-line model of church to a model of concentric circles. According to O'Meara, a fellow Dominican and theologian, "Congar sketched a model which would replace the bipolar division of clergy and laity: a circle with Christ and Spirit as ground or power animating ministries in community."

Many, if not most, of the disagreements over ministry in the church today have their foundation in different visions of what the church is and ought to be, for these two models continue to exist and exercise their influence. Parishioners, pastors, and professional theologians argue little over ancient doctrine. Differences often lie at the level of the imagination, that is, how we imagine or envision this community of which we are a part.

Debate often concerns how specific actions or concrete structures bring into existence (or continue to frustrate) our mental picture of what church and ministry can be. This discussion reflects on two models which are not rigid systematic categories but instead are "imaginative constructs," or simplified pictures of two definite tendencies in the theology of ministry today, two different starting points: the dividing-line model and the model of concentric circles.

The Limitations of a Dividing-Line Model

While the first model, with a line dividing a sacred clergy from a secular laity, was recognized as inadequate by Congar even before the Second Vatican Council, it still influences the church's official statements on ministry. This model has a long history. When the early church singled out important ministers, the intent and initial effect was to strengthen them, to recognize their commitment and leadership — all for the good of the community. But as community leaders became "the clergy," they gradually drew all ministries into their sacred caste. Left over were the laity, those outside the realm of the sacred, designated for the world, nonspecialists in the affairs of the church. Reacting against this split, some theologians promoted a "theology of laity" during the first half of the twentieth century. But in doing so, they did not entirely escape the old division between sacred clergy and secular laity. For this theology sought to give a positive account of both earthly realities and the life of the layperson, and thus it affirmed the laity's primary place in and responsibility for the secular world. This emphasis on the secular orientation of the layperson made its way into the documents of Vatican II and continues to guide papal teaching. However, such an approach fails to adequately account for the many laypeople engaged in church ministries that are not obviously secular (such as religious education or the planning of liturgies), just as it can appear to excuse clergy from temporal responsibilities (like promoting peace initiatives or addressing poverty).

A Helpful Model of Ministry

A more helpful model of church and ministry is that of concentric circles, in which various ministries serve within a church community that as a whole ministers within the world. This model finds its inspiration in the vision of the Second Vatican Council, which recalled the unity and equality of everyone in the church and claimed that the basis of all Christian service lies in baptism. I argue that this model better accounts for the whole church's responsibility (including the ordained ministers) to transform the world in the light of Christ. And it reflects more accurately today's reality of lay ministry, particularly, "lay ecclesial ministry," which is an oxymoron in the dividing-line model. Lay ecclesial ministers are laypeople serving in public ministerial roles that often require theological and professional preparation, full-time employment, and a long-term commitment. The growth of lay ecclesial ministry, in the form of directors of religious education, pastoral associates, liturgical coordinators, youth ministers, campus ministers, and so on, represents a remarkable and positive development since the Second Vatican Council. Their existence demands a theological framework other than the dividing-line model. The way in which individuals, groups, and church documents have reacted to these new lay roles offers a particularly clear illustration of the two models operative today.

To introduce a contemporary relational theology of ministry, we must discuss one of the most visible developments in ministry following the council: laity serving in church ministries formerly reserved to the ordained. Their experiences serve as an example and suggest a framework for understanding all ministry in the church. We reflect, first, on the inadequacies of the dividing-line model for addressing the reality of new lay ministries. Then we consider the more positive directions offered by the model of concentric circles.

Clergy vs. Laity

Surprisingly the documents of Vatican II never use the phrase "lay ministry." "Ministry" in the council texts is something the clergy do; laypeople have an "apostolate." This distinction of terms, though not entirely consistent, reflected the actual distinction at the time between the well-defined ministry of the ordained and the still developing, general apostolate of the laity. For all the affirmation of the full dignity and responsibility of every member of the church, for all the encouragement of laypeople taking up Christ's mission, the council failed to list and describe precisely active roles for laypeople in the church.

The View of the Laity at Vatican II

What was behind the council's statements on the laity? The bringing up to date of the church, wrought by the Second Vatican Council, involved an intentional engagement with the modern world. Leaving behind a vision of the church as self-enclosed and self-absorbed, the council called on all members both to learn from the world and to help transform the secular realm in the light of Christ. The council documents claim that the laity, because of their place in the world of family, work, and culture, have a special responsibility in this mission. They are the church's presence in the world. Their Christian service is likewise "in the world": caring for the sick, the poor, the troubled, bringing a Christian presence to family, society, and nation — all important. But as for laity sharing in the priest's work of administration, preaching, and prayer, the council is hesitant, though not negative. The dividing-line model of ministry, which extends centuries back into the church's history, appears at Vatican II as a theology of laity in which the laity's identity is based on their place and activity in the secular world.

The beginning of Lumen Gentium'schapter 4, "The Laity," reminds the reader of its connection with the document's second chapter on the church as "The People of God": "Everything that has been said of the people of God is addressed equally to laity, religious and clergy." Yet the laity are distinctive. How? Lumen Gentium first describes them in negative terms: "laity is here understood to mean all the faithful except those in holy Orders and those who belong to a religious state approved by the church." This negative description is immediately followed by a positive one. The laity are "all the faithful, that is, who by Baptism are incorporated into Christ, are constituted the people of God, who have been made sharers in their own way in the priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ and play their part in carrying out the mission of the whole christian people in the church and in the world." This statement offers a succinct summary of the council's theology of the church, its ecclesiology, by describing the dignity and responsibility of all Christians. Chapter 4 then articulates the distinctive character of the laity: "To be secular is the special characteristic of the laity. ... It is the special vocation of the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God's will. They live in the world, in each and every one of the world's occupations and callings and in the ordinary circumstances of social and family life which, as it were, form the context of their existence. There they are called by God to contribute to the sanctification of the world from within, like leaven, in the spirit of the Gospel, by fulfilling their own particular duties." Commentators immediately following the council saw Lumen Gentium presenting the layperson according to a "common genus" (people of God through baptism) and "specific difference" (secular nature). That interpretation allowed an affirmation of Vatican II's recognition of the laity's full place within the church, while still explaining the council's assertion that the layperson's proper activity lies in the transformation of the temporal world.

Vatican II, shaped by an evolving positive view of the secular and by the actual lives of the laity, tends to designate different primary realms of responsibility for clergy and laity — clergy are primarily responsible for the church, laity are primarily responsible for the world. The council's Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People (Apostolicam Actuositatem) calls the laity to take their part in the mission of the whole people of God both "in the church and in the world" but goes on to call the renewal of the temporal order the "distinctive task" of the laity. This document reflects on the ways laywomen and laymen, through their influence on family, society, and nation, can contribute to the church's mission in the world. Apostolicam Actuositatem is effusive in describing concrete tasks open to laypeople working in the secular sphere. Care for the sick and for people in need of food, clothing, housing, medicine, employment, or education; attention to those in exile or in prison; work for legislation regarding working conditions, social security, taxes, and migrants; adopting abandoned children, welcoming strangers, helping schools, supporting adolescents, assisting engaged couples, raising awareness about developing nations — all flow from the secular characteristic of the laity.

The Secular Laity

In calling on the laity to engage the world in which they live, the council challenged a view that locked the mission of Christ in a sanctuary or parochial school; it rejected a Christianity too shy of the secular, a faith forgotten after Sunday morning. For the council, active discipleship extends beyond the poor box to public policy, beyond concern over a list of personal sins to concern for basic economic inequality, deep-seated patterns of discrimination, and systems of war. The postconciliar popes Paul VI and John Paul II have demonstrated impressive commitments to promoting the church's mission in the world. In different ways, they have reminded the church of its responsibility to transform the spheres of family life, culture, economics, and politics in the light of Christ, to work for a more just society, the promotion of human dignity, and an end to violence.