January 2005 Book Review

Common Calling – The Laity and Governance of the Catholic Church
Stephen J. Pope, ed., (Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC, 2004)

It would be hard to find a better compilation of current thinking about the state of Catholicism than what Stephen Pope offers in his recently published Common Calling – The Laity & Governance of the Catholic Church. The essays move from the early Church to the emergence of Voice of the Faithful, with a stop in the Baptist tradition and an invaluable, concise tour of feminist theology, in between. To cover so much in fewer than 250 pages is a credit to Pope’s own understanding of these times. He has selected thinkers who have been working this ground most of their adult lives, in one way or another. Their collective vision is both clear and complex. Their message is our “common calling.”

The book is divided between considerations of the historical and contemporary perspectives. That the two somehow complement each other is not by editorial design – it is how our history has emerged; this organic development endorses the very idea of a “voice of the faithful” and, in one essay, our own Jim Post tells that story convincingly.

Pheme Perkins, a professor of the New Testament, establishes at the outset the roots of competing views of church governance. “For some, strengthening the community of faith means investing those who hold ecclesiastical offices with an authority that derives from the awe-inspiring divinity of Christ.” For others, it requires “local churches to develop a Christian maturity that can discern how God is working in their particular contexts and respond accordingly.” Both were at play in the early church. By the third century, Francis Sullivan, S.J., tells us that participation of the laity in church decision making is incontrovertible. It is unclear in these early essays, however, if these lay decision makers included women. Francine Cardman takes up this concern matter-of-factly in making a strong case for the place of the laity (all of us) in “handing on” the faith: “As both second-century doctrinal developments and fourth-century doctrinal conflicts show, apostolicity is an attribute of the whole church – of all believers, not just the bishops. The faith that comes to us ‘from the apostles’ comes from laywomen and –men as much as (or perhaps more than) from clergy.”

Michael Buckley notes the “crisis of leadership” that marks the contemporary church but in ways we haven’t heard so often. His four proposals for restoring confidence in church leadership are drawn from the first millennium of church development: “Restore to local churches – and hence to the laity – a decisive voice in the selection of its own bishop”; “The church should restore the enduring commitment of the bishop to his see” (that is, bishops cannot “see shop,” moving from one diocese to the other); “...restore or strengthen episcopal conferences and regional gatherings of local bishops”; “…counter the present excessive centralization within the church” of certain institutions that may once have served a purpose but should be “reconsidered and perhaps even abolished.” Buckley adds, “I think of such institutions … as the College of Cardinals, the office of papal nuncio, the appointment as ‘bishops’ in the Roman Curia of those who have no local church they administer ….” He concludes that these proposals are both ordinary, in that they reflect the first millennial church, and radical, in that they represent, now, a correction, “even a reversal.”

It is tempting to ask, as R. Scott Appleby does, how did we get here? His essay, “From Autonomy to Alienation” looks at the history of lay trusteeism from 1785 to 1860 and the docility of the laity in the immigrant church, all the way to the long pontificate of John Paul II, which “has not been kind to lay ministry in the United States.” Appleby’s essay leads into Terence Nichols analysis of the difference between a “command hierarchy” and his proposed alternative – a “participatory hierarchy.” Lest readers think the “D” word is being employed, Nichols concludes, that a participatory hierarchy “is not the same as a democratic church. In a democracy, authority is vested with the people….In a Catholic participatory hierarchy, authority is vested in the bishops and the pope, but also in the priests, the theological community, the religious, and, the people. The Spirit acts simultaneously at many levels.”

Lisa Sowle Cahill’s “Feminist Theology and a Participatory Church” is a must-read for any serious discussion of lay involvement in the future of the church. Indeed, it is hard to fathom how reform-minded Catholics will get anywhere without understanding what feminist theology is and what it isn’t. One of the more compelling lines written in Common Calling belongs to Cahill: “At the heart of the feminist Christian vision is neither complaint nor criticism, but hope – hope that change is possible and that justice and love can be realized more completely in society and in the church.”

There is no essay in these pages not worth an evening’s (or many) discussion. John Beal’s lively analogy of the “Perfect Storm” and the gathering elements in our Church today, S. Mark Heim’s relevant perspective from the Baptist experience, Mary Jo Bane’s brilliant understanding of “Voice and Loyalty in the Church” (“A loyal voice…is attentive to revelation and respectful of tradition but also confidently prophetic and visionary and as radical as the voice of the One who lives in the church forever”) and Tom Groome’s argument for “reclaiming the family as the religious educator” are companions on the journey Catholics share. The discussion is informed, lively, ongoing, inclusive and inviting.

Jim Post’s “The Emerging Role of the Catholic Laity” rightly concludes Pope’s assembly of voices, along with Ladislas Orsy’s “The Church of the Third Millennium: In Praise of Communio.” Voice of the Faithful has emerged from and with all of the above – Post’s chronology of events is a recap of a moment in history when thousands of Catholics determined that two millennia of Christianity would not be lost on our watch. We would, as Orsy notes, live this faith in this time knowing, “The one Spirit of Christ is holding many individuals together.”

Common Calling goes a long way toward ensuring that we stay together.

For another articulate consideration of the state of our Church, read Fairfield University professor Paul Lakeland’s paper “Understanding the Crisis in the Church.” It is available here in PDF format.

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