Word: lay
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...more moderate Boston faction annoyed Bernard Cardinal Law recently by suggesting the creation of an independent diocesan advisory council that would compete with a group he appointed. In Belleville, Ill., an existing organization called the Fellowship of Southern Illinois Laity suddenly tripled its membership and actually scheduled a lay synod this past weekend. The headlines have energized a graying generation of reformers and raised up new ones. Some dream of a nationwide lay congress and press for election of parish councils, pastors or even bishops. Others demand financial transparency or rollbacks of Vatican limitations on the lay liturgical role. Even...
...subtler but equally important message about the treatment of the American Catholic laity. The issue arises twice in the document. The bishops mandate the establishment of clergy-review boards to advise each diocesan bishop on abuse cases, and they specify that a board's majority will be "lay persons not in the employ of the diocese." Some dioceses have had such boards for years, but others do not, and the bishops are aiming for a uniform standard and process for handling accusations. In its conclusion the charter goes further, addressing the laity in much broader terms: "We ... wish to affirm...
James Muller, the founder of Voice of the Faithful, is a professorial type who portrays himself as a latter-day Catholic Thomas Paine. The lay people, he would say in his addresses to fellow rebels this spring, were plagued by "donation without representation." The press and legal frenzy over the scandals were like "the Boston Tea Party," and Voice meetings resembled "the Constitutional Convention." Said Muller: "Two hundred years ago, Americans gave representative democracy to the secular world. We're now attempting to do the same thing again--this time for the church...
...reports receiving inquiries from parishes in 40 states about founding their own chapters. Muller himself, a cardiologist, has grown more cautious as his movement has grown bigger. On the Voice website is a set of presentations marked "VOTF Working Paper." They appear to outline a church in which elected lay people would wield as much authority as the clergy, but he will not confirm this as policy. Nor will he commit to favoring popular election to diocesan boards or more transparent church finances, although his group's majority clearly favors both...
Less politic is Kennedy School of Government professor Mary Jo Bane. Bane was part of the Boston group that proposed sending representatives from each of the city's existing lay councils to a central, deliberative "All-Parish Council." Cardinal Law, notoriously mum on his role in the abuse scandals, spoke up almost instantly against the idea, letting it be known that Boston's pastors were not to "join, foster or promote" the group, on the ground that it would compete with an existing panel. Bane called Law's response "astonishingly stupid" given that neither the idea--nor the people involved...