POPE Francis, has recently addressed his remarks to clericalism and the vocation of the laity. He warns against clericalism, reminding priests and consecrated persons that nobody is baptised into the Church as a Bishop, but rather we all enter the Church as laity.
The Pope said this in a letter received on March 19 by Cardinal Marc Ouellet. It was in the context of a meeting to examine the theme of the “indispensable commitment of the lay faithful in the public life of the Church.”
In this letter the Pope writes: “Looking at the People of God is remembering that we all enter the Church as laypeople. The first sacrament, that which seals forever our identity, and of which we must all be proud, is Baptism… No one is baptised a priest or bishop. We have been baptised as laypeople and it is an indelible sign that nobody can ever cancel. It is good for us to remember that the church is not a elite of priests, consecrated people and bishops, but that we all form the People of God. Forgetting this leads to various risks and deformations of our experience, both personal and in the community, of the ministry the Church has entrusted to us”.
“We cannot reflect on the theme of the laity while ignoring one of the greatest deformations – clericalism. This leads to a homogenisation of the laity; treating it as an ’emissary’ limits the various initiatives and efforts that and, I dare say, the boldness necessary to be able to bring the Good News of the Gospel to all areas of social and above all political activity. Clericalism, far from inspiring contributions and proposals, gradually extinguishes the prophetic flame of which the entire Church is called to bear witness in the heart of peoples.”
These words of Pope Francis are, in my view, helpful in the current life of parishes. Clericalism is ‘institutional privilege’ and, as such, it is wrong. Our role and joy as priests resides in helping and serving and encouraging the true agents of life. The laity are the People of God and are, therefore, protagonists of the Church in the world; we priests are called to serve them, not to make use of them.