The Scandal of Clericalism

In the most recent issue of First Things (March 2008 issue), Father Richard John Neuhaus comments at length on clericalism in a piece titled, "Clerical Scandal and the Scandal of Clericalism" (available online to FT subscribers). He begins with comments about a soon-to-be-published book from Ignatius Press:

Russell Shaw admits that some people think he has become a nag on the subject. He has written several books and many more articles on the evils of clericalism. Charmingly titled is his 1993 book, which plays off the answer of an English bishop who was asked about the role of the laity— To Hunt, to Shoot, to Entertain: Clericalism and the Catholic Laity. Now Shaw has a new book coming out from Ignatius Press— Nothing to Hide: Secrecy, Communication, and Communion in the Catholic Church.

Shaw knows whereof he speaks. He was for several years an official spokesman of the United States bishops’ conference and has ample experience with the secretive ways of church leaders who, as the old saw has it, think that the chief and maybe only role of the laity is to pray, pay, and obey. A strength of the new book is that Shaw knows that, both canonically and in pastoral common sense, there is a legitimate and necessary place for confidentiality and secrecy. Shaw is also well aware that the Church is not constituted as a democracy, as he also knows how frequently the observation that the Church is not a democracy is misused to avoid addressing the problem of clericalism.

He is notably faithful to the teaching authority of the Church, and, in fact, it is the authority of the Second Vatican Council and subsequent popes, especially John Paul the Great and Benedict XVI, that he repeatedly invokes in support of his indictment of ­clericalism. Although his book is not chiefly about the sex-abuse scandal that broke in January 2002, he leaves no doubt that the scandal and the bishops’ response to the scandal are part and parcel of the evils of clericalism.

“By clericalism,” Shaw writes, “I mean an elitist mindset, together with structures and patterns of behavior corresponding to it, which takes it for granted that clerics—in the Catholic context, mainly bishops and priests—are intrinsically superior to the other members of the Church and deserve automatic deference. Passivity and dependence are the laity’s lot. By no means is clericalism confined to clerics themselves. The clericalist mindset is widely shared by Catholic lay people.”

Nothing To Hide: Secrecy, Communication and Communion in the Catholic Church is due out next month. read more about it here.

Related Article and Interviews:
• Please Look Behind the Bishops' Potemkin Village | Russell Shaw
• Can Catholics Be Evangelists? An interview with Russell Shaw
• We Are All Called To Be Evangelizers | Introduction to Good News, Bad News,    by Fr. C. John McCloskey, III, and Russell Shaw

Comments

[rj]

The article and review by Fr. Neuhaus is wonderful, living in a diocese where, to quote a friend, the "priests don't trust the laity," I have seen clericalism and its suffocating effects. I found Shaw to be objective and charitable in every interview or article that he appeared after the scandal.

[Arieh]

I see a clericalism of the laity more than that of clerics.

[Sandra Miesel]

Russell Shaw has explored both halves of the problem--the clerical and the lay. Encroachment on each other's place in the Church is part of the sad situation.

[rj]

Clericalism of the laity is the other side of clericalism, both are about "power" and neither is good for the Church. The fact that the term "minister" is thrown around so much in terms of the laity displays the sad reality that many lay people don't understand the nature of the Sacrament of Baptism.

[Roseanne Sullivan]

I am very grateful that Ignatius Press Insight e-letter posted a link to Russell Shaw's Catholic World Report article, "Please Look Behind the Bishops' Potemkin Village." I'm posting my thanks here, because I don't know where else to send it.

As Shaw indicates, the adherence of the "educated" (maybe "miscatechised" would be a more-correct term) laity to Catholic core beliefs is not there. The cookie-cutter list of core beliefs of most "educated" Catholics I've met include the errors Shaw listed: "you don't need to go to Mass, you can have sex outside of marriage, use birth control, have an abortion, all religions are equally true, the Bible is a collection of inspired fictions put together by communities that had an agenda to promote and therefore does not have to be followed as a guide to life, the Pope is out of touch with what real Catholics believe, and those old celibate guys in Rome should stay out of our bedrooms with their out of date morality . . .."

I don't draw the same conclusions as Shaw does about clericalism being the cause. I belief there is a hidden heresy at work behind the scenes. One face is shown to the Pope and another is shown to each other about what they really believe. And while honesty about things like clerical sexual abuse would be essential, letting the laity have more control would be deadly in my book. I would dread having the laity I know run the church, for my part.

[Mark Brumley]

Roseanne, I don't know that Shaw calls for letting the laity run the Church, but he does call for greater openess to the community of the whole Church the clergy was established by God to serve. Nor is laity supplanting the clergy an implication of Shaw's criticism of clericalism. He does not criticize the hierarchical nature of the Church or the existence of clergy. What he criticizes is a pattern of behavior that sees the clergy as the end of the Church rather than as a gift to the Church to facilitate the holiness of all members of the Church, to the glory of God. That pattern of behavior reflects an attitude that looks on the hierarchy (sacred order) as composed of a previleged class of Christians to whom the fundamental norms of Christian conduct and obligations somehow don't apply.

[Anon]

Mr. Brumley:

I have cross swords with priests who look upon themselves as "a privileged class of Christians to whom the fundamental norms of Christian conduct and obligations somehow don't apply" here in a western diocese, and I want to verify what you say. My experience here has been that the most aggressive, "baptized pagan" type of priest often rises to the top of the administrative ladder and proceeds to abuse and harass the laity and priests on lower rungs while manipulating their bishops through various means, up to and including blackmail (if I am to believe what I've been told by insiders). The frequency and audacity with which laws are broken, both civil and canon, by these power-hungry clerics is nearly unbelievable: if I hadn't experienced it for myself . . .

I am part way through Shaw's "To Hunt, to Shoot . . . " This book should be reprinted and every Catholic should read it. I repeat: the average Catholic's understanding of the role of the clergy needs to be informed by this book. Historical development has created a class that Our Lord never meant to exist--priests, yes, but "uber Christians" who dominate and manipulate the flock and often the shepherds--no. The laity needs to learn to treat priests like people. As it is we often grant uncritical power over our lives to people who are in it for the automatic deference that comes from a trusting flock that needs to stop "enabling" aberrant behavior.

There are many good priests. Let’s have more of them.